Top 12 Amazing Animals of 2010

Since everyone makes 'Top Tens' on 2010 on everything, here is a top twelve of this year's coolest animals, based on information provided by New Scientist.

To avoid all 'discrimination' and to keep everyone happy, the order of the animals is alphabetical.

The Bone skipper

This little fly was believed to be extinct for 160, so when it showed up in Spain, it amazed the entire research community.

The bone skipper was believed to be the first fly to be exterminated by humans, but it seems that somewhere along the road, we missed it.

This nocturnal animal that feeds on the rotten flesh of large mammals, is active only during the winter and you can identify it by its glowing, large, orange head.

The Cacoxenus indagator

Here is another fly, that actually has a very rough start of its adult life – the Cacoxenus indagator.

It has to fight for its survival, since at one point, it's walled up in the dark, with no food and no escape, and its only way out is to smash its way through a stone wall with its head.

A human being would probably die, but this fly knows exactly what to do, and it usually finds the right direction.

The Great bustard

This huge 'chicken' is the heaviest living animal that can fly – the great bustard.

Females never go beyond 5 kilograms, but males, they usually weigh between 10 and 16 kilograms, and some can even reach 21 kilograms.

This is quite a difference between mates, but it seems that females prefer big 'guys', with long necks and opulent whiskers.

The Long-eared desert bat

Don't be fooled by its funny-looking ears, because it seems that the long-eared desert bat, might as well be one of the toughest animals alive.

The proof is that it has Palestine yellow scorpions for dinner, regardless of whether they sting it or not.



The Mummichog

This cute little fish is actually amazingly resilient and it can cope with all kinds of environmental conditions.

The mummichog can survive in levels of pollution that would kill almost any living being, and it was also the first fish that was sent into space.

The Olm

This 'baby dragon' is actually a blind little amphibian with translucent skin, that could hold the secret of longevity.

This small salamander spends its life in cave water – and it is quite a long life, since the olm can reach as much as 100 years old.

It has no eyes nor skin pigmentation, and through its entire life, it remains extremely inactive.

Could that be the key to eternal life?

The Oriental hornet

The oriental hornet is one 'electric' wasp.

It possesses a small solar cell in its abdomen, that can generate a small electrical voltage in its cuticle, and this impulse actually helps the hornet wake up in the morning.

The Peppermint shrimp

This is not really the name of a food course, but that of a brightly-colored crustacean, with a very hard to pronounce style of life – it is a protandric simultaneous hermaphrodite.

For those who are confused, this shrimp starts out as a male, but sometimes, if it runs our of mating options, it turns into a hermaphrodite with both male and female reproductive organs.

Apparently they are not very eager to change sides, so they usually wait around for someone else to do it first.



The Spinoloricus x

This pink little animal is actually the first complex creature that is known to be able to survive and reproduce entirely without oxygen.

There are many single-celled organisms that live without oxygen but the spinoloricus x is a remarkable creature with millions of cells, that thrives in sediments deep under the Mediterranean Sea (thick with salt and hydrogen sulphide gas).

The Symbion pandora

The Symbion pandora is not a new animal species, but rather a new kind of animal.

This animal showed up on the mouths of Norway lobsters, and since nobody had seen it before, it had to be considered as a new phylum.

It is very interesting to study since it is quite a complex creature, and the intriguing thing is that despite years of study, no one knows how it evolved.

The Syringammina fragilissima

The first specimen of this new group of organisms, called the single-celled xenophyophores, was first discovered in the late summer of 1882.

The species they found is the exceptional Syringammina fragilissima, and it is a single-celled organism.

The special thing about it is that unlike other single-celled organisms that are microscopic, this one normally reaches a width of 10 centimeters, and sometimes even twice that size.

It also surrounds itself with a crusty structure called a test, that is considered to be the largest object made by a single cell.

The Yellow-bellied three-toed skink

Finally, this Australian reptile has been caught in plain evolution since it contains two populations: one that gives birth to live young and another that lays eggs.

Still, they can interbreed and clearly belong to the same species.



Hopefully, at the end of next year, we would have found another twelve amazing creatures on our planet, to talk about.