Animals Scarier Than Sharks

Shark Week is like the Black Friday of television programming. It comes around once per year and the people who don't shut the f*** up about it on Facebook look completely insane to us normals. Women especially seem to love them some Shark Week. Go ahead and search through your Facebook news feed for mentions of Shark Week, we'll wait. It's at least a 4:1 female-to-male ratio.

Don't let the title of this article deter you, though. Sharks are as scary as "Limbaugh/Beck 2012" posters. But being massive apex predators with razor-sharp regenerative teeth that can smell blood and sense faint electromagnetic fields, they were designed to strike fear the same way Kanye was designed to cockblock acceptance speeches.

We'll take a look at eight animals scarier than sharks, but we'll limit our Australian selections, otherwise this list would be full of Aussie crap fearsome enough to make Satan say a few Hail Marys.

8. Lion's Mane Jellyfish

Lifted right out of Cthulu's nightmares, the Lion's Mane Jellyfish is the largest known species of jellyfish on the planet. The bell can grow to eight feet in diameter, which put into perspective means you lay out a full grown man and a midget end-to-end, and the jellyfish is still potentially a couple of inches bigger (depending on the midget's hairstyle.) Its tentacles can grow to 98 feet.You could be a third of a football field away from this thing's head and it can still sting you, much to the delight of your friends who are what could be called "golden shower enthusiasts" and believe the myths about how to neutralize stings with urine.

Luckily, it's really only scary and not deadly as it's not all that harmful to humans. Sure, a jellyfish sting hurts as much as The Green Lantern hurt Warner Bros., but you'll live.

7. Black Widow Spider

Well, duh. This one is scary for two reasons: 1.) It's a spider. 2.) Its venom can (albeit somewhat rarely) kill adult humans. Luckily, no human in the U.S. has died from a black widow bite in over 10 years. Spiders are considered the assholes of the insect world, mostly because they look like insects yet aren't. The males are smaller and not potent enough to harm humans, but the crazy venomous females are. In the words of every black comedian ever, these "bitches be crazy."

6. Star-nosed Mole

When setting out to write this article, we thought, "no, there is no possible way a creature with fur could be freaky." Wrong. Lions are feared because they'll tear your shit off. Wolves are feared because they'll gang up around you and eat your baby. But this thing? This thing is scary due to the fact that for some reason evolution decided to circumvent itself and give us a mammal with 22 tentacles on its face. And it's blind.

It won't kill you, it wouldn't even hurt you physically, but it can feed on your soul. Or at least it looks like it can.

5. Anglerfish

Specifically the ones that live in the deep sea. These pricks always look pissed as hell and have these small "I don't really feel like swimming, just hanging around here to fuck shit up" fins along with extremely long, extremely sharp teeth

Straight out of the menagerie of a dethroned god, few deep sea anglerfish have ever been seen alive. It is said that if you see one, he can grant you a single wish, provided the wish is, "I wish I had a way to get rid of all this feces in my body."

4. Black Mamba

The fastest and most dangerous snake in Africa. You know why it's so scary? Because it's not even black! No, they don't call it "black" because it's fast or African, they call it that because of the color of its mouth, something it shows often being such an aggressive snake. Black mambas are said to attack first and flee later, and if they get tired while fleeing they'll take a page out of 300 and turn around to begin their suicidal attacks. Perhaps it's why they call Kobe Bryant the Black Mamba. Because this thing will rape you. Allegedly.

3. Vampire Squid

Its Latin name is Vampyroteuthis infernalis, which literally translates to "vampire squid from hell." What is it with scary shit coming from the ocean? Poseidon himself freaks out when he sees this squid the same way every girlfriend ever goes apeshit and starts squealing when they see a tiny cockroach running in the opposite direction. It wears a "cloak" over its tentacles and has tiny spines littering them. Oh, it also has the added ability of being able to flash light. Think about how terrifying it must be when you're in the dark nether of the ocean and suddenly some squid flashes bright light at you, then excretes a glowing blue mucus.

By the way, all squids have a beak too. So yeah.

2. Caecilian

Pronounced almost like Sicilian, which are scary in and of themselves, these creatures are like what would happen if Nazi scientists were allowed to continue their experiments cross-breeding earthworms and snakes. Any time you attempt to read up on these weird critters, each paragraph begins with "little is known about..." That's probably because the only person man enough to handle them is the Old Spice Guy and he's too busy peddling hygiene products. They probably can't kill humans, then again little is known about them, so yeah.

1. Stone Fish

This fish was Nemo after a few years of chronic meth use. It's a very dangerous, very venomous fish found on the coasts of Australia. For no other reason than to just f*** with higher beings, this thing hangs out on the floor pretending to be a rock. Upon hearing that their venom is powerful enough to kill humans unfortunate enough to step on them, you might think to yourself, "well f*** that then, next time I go to Australia, I won't go in the water." Unfortunately for you, stone fish can stay out of water for up to 24 hours. Go ahead, Vatican City, explain to me why this shit exists.

Source : http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com