#weirdanimaltournament

In what will likely be a trend of me shunning comparatively well-known species for my obscure favorites (and my anti-fish bias), the Mexican mole lizard is so much weirder than it looks. It may be winning its poll, but that margin is too close for comfort so I felt the need to infodump.

The Mexican Mole Lizard is a species of of amphisbaena, named after the two-headed serpent of legend (which is awesome) and long thought to be not-lizards, a separate order of reptile on par with lizards and snakes (some evidence suggests that they are technically a type of lizard, but in the same way that snakes are lizards. I argue that like snakes, they don’t have lizard vibes and that this is irrelevant for the purposes of this tournament)

All amphisbaenas are limbless EXCEPT for this guy and the two other members of this genus. Are they the most basal/primitive amphisbaenas, who split off from the rest and never hopped onto the no-leg fad? Nope, they’re nested smack in the middle of the amphisbaena family tree. I don’t know if they actually re-evolved limbs from nothing, but that’s certainly what it seems like. If so, that would be insane - how do you just re-evolve your goddamn limbs?!?

In addition, Mexican Mole Lizards, like other large amphisbaenas, are predators that usually eat worms and insects but will also go after lizards and rodents, attacking above-ground prey from below like a sci-fi monster. Other species of amphisbaena which regularly feed on small vertebrates have been known to rip chunks of flesh out of their prey. Look at the terrifying, huge-ass teeth hiding inside these adorable little faces

Vote Mexican Mole Lizard for the Weird Animal Tournament! It is truly A Creature™️ and deserves to be celebrate as such on this platform. How could you say no to this face?

I love Jerusalem Crickets with all my heart and I will not stand to see them eliminated in the first round by a fish, even if I think fish are lowkey eldritch creatures. Ever heard of the Giant Wētā of New Zealand? Jerusalem crickets (not from Jerusalem, also not a real cricket) are basically those but in the American southwest and not quite as big. According to Wikipedia, they’re also found in Sri Lanka and Indonesia for some reason.

Unlike basically every other Orthopteran (the grasshopper/cricket/Katydid order of insects), they don’t use their wings to call to each other - they drum their abdomens on the ground instead. They’re also omnivores that readily eat other insects, which feels weird for an orthopteran (and even if that’s not actually that weird for an orthopteran, it *feels* weird, and sometimes that’s what matters). I’m pretty sure that all species are flightless and most lack wings, and they’re also not good at jumping, which immediately makes it a Weird Orthopteran™️

And while I do admit that pufferfish have freaky teeth and a mind-boggling skeleton, for me it’s the principle of the matter. Jeruselum crickets stand in for a whole array of weird-ass orthopterans in the superfamily Stenopalmatoidea: giant wētā, tusked wētā, parktown prawns, cooloola monsters, tree wētā, king crickets, and leaf-rolling crickets (which apparently produce silk from their mouths), all relatives of the humble Jerusalem cricket.

Pufferfish may be objectively weird, and their relatives may be equally weird, but I believe that obscurity often plays a huge factor in the perceived weirdness of an animal. Pufferfish, boxfish, triggerfish, and mola mola are decently well-known if not famous sea creatures, while Jerusalem crickets and most of their relatives are far from mainstream at best and often incredibly obscure.

A vote for the Jerusalem cricket isn’t just a vote for the best arthropod to bear the name Potato Bug; it’s a vote for all of the large, chunky, usually flightless, and criminally underrated quasi-wetas of the world

Also, I think they’re adorable. How can you say no to that face? Do it for him. Vote jeruselum cricket

Jerboa may be cute but y’know what else they are? Basic. Jumping rodents have independently evolved at least five other times, and jerboa’s ain’t even the only bipedal ones. I would also argue that they ain’t even the weirdest looking ones (looking at you, springhaas)

On the other hand, sea spiders are next-level bizarre. They’re bodies are so small that their digestive organs are stuffed into their legs. Since their legs are full of organ, some small species only have a single muscle cell in each leg. They don’t have a goddamn respiratory system, they just absorb oxygen via their legs and spread it through the body via diffusion. A sea spider’s heart is so small that it can’t actually pump blood into the legs, so it uses wave-like contractions of the digestive tract instead.

And despite the fact that they seem to have min-maxed their bodyplan to be as Leg™️ as physically possible, their larvae don’t even start out with any proper legs!! And apparently larvae are parasitic as well? The fact that these creatures are even remotely functional is mind-boggling to me. As of the time of writing, sea spiders are losing the polls and the fact that this absolute mess of a not-spider is losing to a perfectly functional rodent in the first round is a travesty. VOTE SEA SPIDER SO THEY MAY RETAIN THEIR RIGHTFUL PLACE IN THE WIERD ANIMAL TOURNAMENT