It goes without saying that nature is full of the most amazing things we’ll ever see in our lifetimes. We see it in our local national parks, the local flora and fauna, and our favorite trails. But for every adorable dog, nature has churned out a cloud of spiders. For every fluffy cat, there’s a toilet full of snakes. For every picturesque beachfront, there’s the unknown abyss where the strangest creatures thrive. Nature is indeed beautiful but it never said anything about scaring the hell out of you.
You might want to lock your bathrooms for this one, and maybe you should reconsider that next beach trip. Here are 65 new ways nature has found to be seriously freaky.
1) Circle of life
We all know the lyrics of the song and the scene where a monkey holds up a lion cub for all of the savannahs to see. But the “circle of life” there isn’t what the circle it’s all about. Take a look at this animal skull, for example. What has once fed on the surface shall die, and what has died shall be feasted on to make a new life. Who knew that death could be so poetic?
2) “Sky” cable problems
Can someone fix the antenna? The sky’s all fuzzy again with all this signal interference. No one really knows what this is but we’re guessing that this is some kind of a migratory swarm. Did that information make us feel better? Absolutely not.
3) “Toad Stool”
Maybe you should visit a doctor if your stool is full of frogs. But kidding aside, they said this was a result of a flood where the local amphibious fauna crawled into pipes and homes in order to save themselves. Now, we don’t know what’s scarier between the two.
4) Halloween bouquet
No, these aren’t your neighbor’s Halloween decorations from last year. These skull-looking seed pods are an actual plant called a Snapdragon. With their flowers withering like tiny skulls sewn on a bouquet, this plant can come in handy when you date a goth.
5) A scary morsel
Sear them up, throw them with some pasta, or wrap it in bacon. Scallops are so good but only if you get over the fact that these sea creatures have the eyes of an other-worldly sea god. Just imagine those eyes looking at you as you munch on a morsel of this delectable shellfish.
6) Oh, so they’re a real thing?
The Hypsignathus monstrosus is the scientific name of your usual domesticated gothic cathedral gargoyle. Okay, it’s not but that’s exactly what this bat looks like. It’s most commonly known as the Hammerhead bat, one of the largest bats in Africa. If the Europeans saw this as inspiration for their church sculptures, we won’t be surprised.
7) So full of himself
Lizards are commonly known to drop their tails when facing a threat. And when we say “drop“, we mean amputating themselves and leaving the tail to distract predators. But what’s freaky is the part where they eat their amputated appendage. It’s a friend of yours eating their own hands because it’s a “free meal”.
8) Underwater Underworld
Ever seen those scenes in movies where the walls of the underworld are lined with the hands of the damned? Then they’ll reach out to your leg and drag you further in? That’s exactly what these hands are making us feel. A bundle of adult-sized hands is creepy but these teeny tiny baby grabbers just dialled it up to 11.
9) Interesting tattoo you got there
You know what’s scarier than a spider? A spider that you can’t see. The bad news is, the wrap-around spider is a master of camouflage. Now, you can’t just go grabbing branches and tree parts when you’re out in the wild. The good news is, it’s only found in Australia. Australia and their infinitely crazy fauna.
10) A web of massacre
If you’re thinking about how spiders celebrate Thanksgiving, this might be the closest answer you’ll get. This spider didn’t only catch food for itself, but also for their siblings, parents, cousins, aunts and uncle, grandparents, and maybe even their cousin thrice removed. Might be scary but that’s definitely good spidering right there.
11) What thalassophobia is all about
It looks exactly like an unknown tentacle monster that swam towards the shallows, ready to take in its next victim. Or maybe those are just kelps dancing behind the waves. Or is it? Whichever’s the case, we’re not jumping into the waters just yet and become the first five minutes of a horror movie.
12) Reaching from six-feet under
This fungus is called Dead Man’s Fingers and aptly so! This is definitely something that you don’t want to see when you’re out alone in the woods. A young Dead Man’s Fingers is to blame for this creepy resemblance as it becomes less creepy when it matures.
13) Indigestion
At first glance, it looks like a frog crawling up the screen where the guy behind the camera is flashing light towards it. But it’s actually a firefly, aka the frog’s most recent dinner, still alive and producing light. Unfortunately for the firefly, its friends can’t rescue them in there.
14) It’s alive!
Proto-science has told us tales of corpses coming back to life after being zapped by lightning. This frog was found all dried up when the posters came up with the idea of throwing water onto the frog. By some miracle, the frog squirmed then came back to life. At least they saved a couple of bucks from their electric bill.
15) Pufferfish, or what’s left of it
Puffer fishes perfectly sum up love and hate relationships. It’s adorable in its bloaty form, but we also want to steer clear of the spikes. While most fishes have a pretty common skeletal structure, this one is all sorts of nasty. Like pins and barbs rolled together then were thrown in the sea. Love and hate? This one is just pure hate.
16) Monsters on your lawn
This is exactly what you don’t want to see after encountering a UFO. Is this the start of an invasion? Was this a government experiment gone rogue? Fortunately, the Clathrus archeri is from this planet. But that doesn’t mean it’s not scary.
17) A giant nope
This is a Giganticus nope. No, we made that up. This might be an Australian huntsman spider, which is commonly found in dollhouses or houses with really small windows or curtains. Or at least that’s what we say to ourselves before going to sleep.
18) Ooh, cozy!
It’s 2AM and you just want to take a leak. Then you see this. While pythons are not poisonous, their teeth can do some real damage, not to mention their bone-breaking coil. We sure hope that this is just a pet snake that was thrown in there because their aquarium is broken.
19) Get me that bait bucket!
Okay, we get it. It can be really gross. Especially if these critters cover up your ceiling like that. And as much as you want to throw gasoline on that pillar and burn everything that it stands for, remember that nature always has a reason. For an angler and a farmer, that’s a bucket full of bait or compost flippers.
20) You should not have dug that
It’s a perfect prop for a horror movie where a team of teenagers get lost in the witch’s woods. But actually, it’s a skull that was left in water and soil for a year. The tannins in the soil stained the bones and turned them into a cult headpiece. The poster defended their creation saying “Some might say that our wildlife biologist is the lord Satan himself, but we just call him Frank.”
21) Mommy, I’m hungry
A chub toad is pretty freaky on its own but a chub toad crawling towards you with a set of gnarly teeth can give anyone a good dose of the heebie-jeebies. This toad got lucky and ate gobbled up an entire spider. It could’ve just swallowed the thing but we guess it’s taking it home so it can watch TV while eating dinner.
22) It’s like an entirely different creature
Snakes are creepy on their own, especially the fearsome cobra. But when the creature was skinned and assembled to show its skeletal anatomy, it suddenly looked like a giant alien centipede. The ribs look exactly like legs that can crawl up to anything or anyone.
23) It believed it can, and it did
This black swallower did what any ambitious swallower would do, consume a fish that’s bigger than life. Unfortunately for the swallower, fishes can burst out from their expandable stomach or they decompose faster than the swallower can digest. The gasses released from the decomposition process bloat them up that they float to the surface. May this be a reminder to all that we should not eat 4x our weight during Thanksgiving.
24) In house pest control
It’s only creepy if you think of the scale of this murder. Seeing a fully grown cockroach being eaten by a fully grown lizard is like a miniature deathmatch, but having these in-house pest control can really be helpful in trimming down these nasty vectors.
25) The real kingfisher
This whole murder scene is kind of freaky when you think about who’s involved — a giant snake pulling out a hefty river fish from the water. If a snake can attack like that from above, we’re all gonna look up when we lose our way in the swamps. Good thing snakes of this size are pretty chill.
26) So thirsty
It’s a sad diorama of a chameleon being mummified alive in the summer heat but it also shows the immense power of nature and what it could do if we’re exposed to the elements. We’re no chameleon experts but we’re pretty sure you can’t dump this in water and expect it to come back to life.
27) I “geese” not!
Geese are nasty things! They’re obnoxious and they’re territorial! Just look at those eyes and that set of “teeth”! That’s exactly what an animal that chooses violence in the morning looks like! If it were to harass us in the park, we’ll just leave the bread and the entire pond alone.
28) No, those are totally not scales
Those are not giant scales. Those are not even part of the snake. That snake is covered with ticks that will make your skin crawl off your flesh. Ticks are nasty things that can wriggle under the scales and go to town. Other animals fall victim to these parasites as well so there’s really just one thing to do: Drown the ticks!
29) Not from this world
These almost alien-like species of fish were found hanging around ancient volcanoes off the coast of Sydney. We really do hope that this is the adult version of this species because something larger than that would’ve been nightmare fuel for first-time divers.
30) Not from here, are ya?
Strange to be looking up at a small underwater mine, or a science project, or a strange flower on a tree. But this is actually a pufferfish that’s an unfortunate casualty of a storm. Or at least that’s what the people are arguing about. Either this fish was brought there by giant waves, or it’s a home decoration blown off course by the wind.
31) Nightmare noodle
Oceans are scary because of jellyfishes, or unknown sea creatures. Marshes are scary because of snakes, and gators. Rivers are scary because of leeches and this guy over here with three sets of teeth in different places. That’s definitely something that’s gonna latch on you so you better check the water before diving in.
32) Nightmare crawler
A whip spider can’t really be considered a spider since its “two legs” are actually claws. But even if we agree to their classification, that does not change the fact that this creature, by far, is one of the creepiest we’ve seen. The long slender needle-like legs are only half the scare because if you look closely, she’s carrying a blob of her offspring on her back.
33) Five-legged mutant
Before you share this with your friends and say that this frog drank something radioactive, you need to know that it might be caused by something else. A parasite can infect frogs and affect the development of their limbs. Because of this, some frogs have extra legs which makes it hard for them to move, thus making them easier prey for birds. Yeah, creepy and sad.
34) Super villains
If this is not enough to convince you that wasps are the real villains, we don’t know what will. Only megalomaniac villains would make bases that bear resemblance to their faces. Unfortunately for the owner, there is but one way to deal with the menace. Burn it. Burn it all.
35) A failed escape
We’ve always thought that dolphins are friendly creatures, but just like any other animal, dolphins need to feed. This is not a dolphin-squid crossbreed. The squid is actually dinner and its failed escape mechanism results in this surreal stain that looks like a rocket zipping through space.
36) Lava waterfalls
In today’s weather, it’s mostly cloudy with a chance of lava. Folks, this is definitely the kind of flood that you don’t want to see yourself stranded in, just like that tree in the middle. But just to mess with you, that fiery river is actually a common occurrence deep underground.
37) It’s some kind of warning
We don’t know about you but we’re sure this spider is trying to communicate something. Either the web is poisonous or they know who when the next Spider-man movie is coming out. Whichever the case is, this spider knows how to get the attention it needs.
38) No, I saw that in Alien!
We don’t know why this person is holding that creature up like that but that’s exactly what you shouldn’t be doing as far as movies are concerned. That thing might jump on your face and the next you know, you’re having an explosive case of diarrhea. And when we say explosive, it’s like really explosive. But kidding aside, that looks like something that would go well with butter and garlic, don’t you think?
39) Creepy mystery
There are a lot of creepy mysteries surrounding this photo. That creature looks pretty much like a frog, but how did it get inside the web? And how is the web supporting so much weight? And why does this frog look like jello? Was it some kind of poison that melted all its insides?
40) Homeless bees
It might look like the next furniture design fad but it’s a bad idea to sit on that chair. Although, we should say that this chair is doing the environment a favor. We hope that this swarm, no matter how scary they are, found a new home. Bees are friends, people. One of nature’s best workers.
41) Exactly what the name says
When someone names a fish “goliath tigerfish”, this is exactly what we thought it looks like. Powerful jaws and tiger-like fangs all merged into a body of a giant river fish. The largest tigerfish ever recorded is about 5 feet long and weighs around 154 pounds. That’s an equivalent of a super-welterweight fighter. And yes, they attack humans.
42) A heart transplant gone bad
This sweet potato is not as scary, but what’s terrifying is having your heart replaced with a sweet potato. And while the chances of that are really close to zero, you must admit that this root crop is pretty amazing. We’re just not sure if the veins and arteries are exact but hey, we can’t have everything.
43) Mothman
The last time people saw this, there’s a bridge that collapsed, people lost their lives, and Point Pleasant created a new urban legend. We don’t know what this guy wants, but we can safely assume that it’s looking for a lamp to bump its head into.
44) There’s always a bigger fish
This seaside crime scene proved that old proverb: “There’s always a bigger fish”. And judging by the size of the parts that got torn from this poor thing, that fish is definitely bigger and meaner. But what kind of creature would take two big chomps then leave its food just like that?
45) “Firefox has froze”
Kidding aside, this scene is one of the saddest on this list, and one of the scariest too. People should not underestimate going under a sheet of ice. Because once you lose sight of the crack you fell into, there’s a high chance that you’re gonna be turned into a frozen taxidermy project.
46) Heads of our enemies
It’s not the head actually, but it’s less cool if we say “the butts of our enemies”. It’s probably carrying the tail end of an unfortunate earwig. The first rule in the insect world is “Don’t mess with ants”, because these colonies won’t think twice about swarming you, tearing you apart, and taking your parts home to feed their children.
47) Where’s the flamethrower?
Imagine needing to have a flame thrower just to check the water heater. Good thing these aren’t spiders. They’re most probably cave crickets who moved in rent-free. And just like that, the cupboard under the floors is now named “The Nope Room”.
48) Kill it with fire!
That creature is most welcome to go back to whichever science fiction movie it came from! But this is actually two species battling it out to the death. This snake just gobbled up an entire scolopendra, or at least that’s what the alien creature looks like. Yes, we really hope that this is just a giant centipede and a really hungry snake.
49) Post apocalyptic tee time
Before you say anything about this being photoshopped, this photo is a hundred percent real. This dystopian scene happened in Oregon during the Eagle Creek fire. The lack of panic from these golfers is mainly because of the Columbia River that stood between them and the fire.
50) “Let my people go!”
Must be hard to find yourself in a plague-infested Egypt. This must be how they felt when frogs emerged from their houses. That black soupy mass is a fountain of frogs, and we actually don’t know how they’ll get out of that froggy situation. Maybe just let the Israelites go?
51) Hiya, neighbor!
Even if this spider comes in peace, which most probably is, we still won’t open that window. Even an inch. Huntsman spiders don’t kid around when it comes to sizes. They could grow up to a foot wide, which easily means that they’re “arachnophobia” in the flesh.
52) To its final destination
If there are funerals in the animal world, this is it. This lizard is being carried into the colony where it will be stripped and torn down into food. This predator of insects has lived long enough to see itself become the prey. Are we surprised? No, we’ve seen ants swarm carcasses clean. Are we terrified? Yes. Yes, we are.
53) Secret worlds
You may not see it in plain sight, but a lot of insects build their homes in the darkest and most isolated corners of our homes. Yes, the same place where we sleep. While ceilings are the most obvious ones, some insects can build nests in tiny places like keyholes.
54) “If you can answer.. the riddle!”
This is a bit creepy but in a different sense. We’ve seen how bees form arrowheads in cartoons, but to actually see ants form a very identifiable punctuation mark, that’s a bit crazy. Are they offering a prize for answering their riddle correctly? Are they trying to send a message? Did someone spill soda in a question mark shape?
55) Seven year itch
No, we’re not talking about the relationship myth. We’re talking about the kind of itch that this swarm is going to inflict upon you and your homestead. We are not mosquito experts but from where we’re standing, that definitely looks like a plague.
56) Bleeding tree
If trees bled like this, maybe we still have a lot of our forests intact. Unfortunately, this didn’t stop people from harvesting this vulnerable plant. They believe that the “blood” has some kind of rejuvenating property, but that is unproven. Cutting the tree like that and hearing a groan of pain right after will send any harvester running.
57) River monsters
Another reason to fear rivers is the gar. Their razor-sharp teeth and long mouth can be nightmare fuel for your arms or any appendage. This fish also grows in enormous sizes, with some even growing up to 350 pounds. If you find yourself waddling in a river, just think that one of these is swimming underneath.
58) A fire that water can’t kill
Fire ants are known to decimate insects and animals that are unfortunate enough to end up on their path. In fact, these insects are so resilient that they can float on rivers after intense flooding. So while you’re already fearing for snakes, monster fishes, lampreys, and leeches, just be careful not to swim in a flood of fire ants.
59) Bitter winter
The coyote isn’t the creepy part in this photo. It’s actually the fact that this poor animal froze in place because of the bitter winter. It just proves that nature can be unforgiving, and if you’re not careful, you can end up as a frozen mummy.
60) No such thing as “too many tusks”
“Armed to the teeth” is a foreign concept to the babirusa because for this animal, armed to the face is the proper approach. While their strange tusks are a bit scary, their appetite is even scarier. These animals eat almost anything, from berries, fishes, mushrooms, and even small babirusas.
61) Alien worlds
The scary thing about the ocean is the fact that we haven’t fully discovered what’s underneath. This “alien” world is home to strange denizens just like the elusive bigfin squid. If they are real squid or some other-worldly entities, we can’t say. But what we do know is that they don’t have business being close to the shore.
62) Little dragons
Native to South East Asia, these brightly colored dragon millipedes are critters that you don’t want to mess with. They look like creepy-crawlies going to a rave party, but they’re armed with hydrogen cyanide — a highly poisonous substance.
63) Best Halloween costume goes to…
The Phyllodes imperialis, or the pink underwing moth, is much more amazing than it is scary. Sure, it looks like a caterpillar dressed up for a Halloween party, but this elusive moth species gives us something much more to be scared of. They are endangered due to loss of habitat, and the Australian government is trying to find ways to increase their population.
64) The weirdest spider you’ll ever see
Spiders are freaky as is, but the assassin spider, also known as pelican spider, dials up the crazy to 15. Long neck, sharp fangs, and needle-like legs, the spider got its name because it feasts on other spiders. Now, things that kill spiders can be our friends, but it’s pretty hard when the friend looks like this.
65) Images you can feel on your skin
What’s worse than a fire ant? An entire blob of fire ants. These little insects are so fierce, they can skin, strip, and tear through flesh in remarkable efficiency. They are also smart enough to use themselves and their comrades to build rafts and bridges to help them achieve their goal of decimating their foes.
What made your skin crawl? What made the hair on your skin stand? Remember that these things are living with us and around us. SHARE this with your friends and family and scare the heck out of them.