A social, pack-hunting, slime-shooting, 200-pound, 2.5-meter long, apex predator.

Phylum Onychophora... indeed. :3

Blue Velvet Worm (Euperipatoides sp.), family Peripatopsidae, Mt. Zero, Taravale Sanctuary, Paluma Range, Queensland, Australia

photograph by Stephen Zozaya

Red Velvet Worm (Peripatus solorzanoi), family Peripatidae, Guayacán Rainforest Reserve, Costa Rica

photograph via: Guayacán Rainforest Reserve

White Cave Velvet Worm (Peripatopsis alba), family Peripetopsidae, known only from two cave systems on Table Mountain, South Africa

photograph by Rodrigo Ferreira

Also, check out this video:

Velvet Worm (Euperipatoides sp.), family Peripatopsidae, QLD, Australia

Velvet worms (Euperipatoides rowelli) 

Science Fact Friday: These really weird not-worm worms.

I just learned about these little critters this week and HAD to do a Science Fact Friday on them.

Additional fact I couldn’t fit in: Some species of velvet worms lay eggs. Other species birth live young, either by storing eggs inside their bodies that hatch shortly before birth (ovoviviparity) or via actual in-uterus placental development (viviparity).

Evolution pls stop you’re being ridiculous