There's a terrifying hunter lurking on the bottom of tropical seas. It's called the bobbit worm, and it can destroy.

Meet the tarsier, the wide-eyed staring contest champ of the animal world. Its eyes have evolved to be so enormous, it can’t even move them in its head. Which means you can say whatever you want to a tarsier and it can’t roll its eyes at you.

The shrike may look like a songbird but the only tunes it knows are METAL! The cute little bird kills its prey then impales them on spikes.

The pygmy seahorse is cute, that much is clear. It’s got amazing camo. Also clear. But the big mystery: How on Earth it changes to so perfectly match its surroundings.

The Fennec fox is the smallest, and arguably the cutest, fox on earth. Its enormous ears make it look like a cartoon character and help it hear prey and keep cool.

Fair warning. This video is about the botfly's horrific larvae, which grow and feed in human flesh. Don't say we didn't warn you.

Look at the nudibranch. Beautiful, right? That's its way of saying it will mess you up. You see, the nudibranch packs a punch–in a very unusual way

Hey listen, we’re all lopsided. You’d look weird as hell if you were perfectly symmetrical. But the strawberry squid is really lopsided, with one tiny eye and one giant eye.

The silky anteater isn't high. It's just tired, because this proficient nocturnal hunter has no business being up during the day.

The hydra's got kind of a jellyfish thing going on, with tentacles it uses to snag prey. But this tiny freshwater creature regenerates itself over and over again.

The frogfish is a vicious hunter that swallows its victims whole, but it doesn’t really bite its prey. By rapidly expanding its mouth to 10 times its normal volume, the predator creates a vacuum that sucks victims in.

Our childhood hermit crab has a rather more … sizable cousin: the 3-foot-wide, 9-pound coconut crab that can rip coconuts and sometimes, well, kittens to pieces.

For a bird called the kingfisher, stealth, dive-bombing and impalement is a way of life.

The binturong has a prehensile tail, crazy feet, and excretes a scent that smells like popcorn. Just call it Orville Smellenbacher.

It’s called a remora, and you’ve probably seen it before. It attaches to fish and marine mammals all the time. But get this: It doesn’t attach with its mouth. It’s got a suction cup it wears as a hat.

For a tiny arthropod called a globular springtail, life is about being generally spherical and generally pissed-looking.

The tree kangaroo may have shrunken hind legs, but hey, at least it can walk backwards unlike regular roos. Oh, also: It can plummet out of trees and not suffer the consequences.

In South America, the peanut bug ambles around with a goofy-ass head. And that’s not its only clever defense against the bullies of the rainforest.

The sea spider isn’t actually a spider, but it’s genitals are on its legs. Which is nice.

May I introduce you to the rotifer, a magical microscopic critter that uses a buzz saw to suck its victims into its face.

Say hello to the secretary bird. It’s a bird of prey, but it ain’t doing no swooping. Instead, it kicks the everloving crap out of its victims.

Meet the bizarre sea pig, a kind of sea cucumber that walks along the sea floor on little squishy feet. Oh, and it shoves dead things into its mouth with tentacles.

The agouti ain’t no sewer rat: It’s actually a pivotal part of the rainforest ecosystem. Like a weird-looking squirrel, really.

The leafy and weedy seadragons might not breathe fire, but they’re every bit as majestic as real dragons.

The mudskipper is a fish marvelously adapted to terrestrial life. From it's powerful fin-feet to its googly eyes perched on top of its head, it's made for boogying across terra firma.

Revisit WIRED's favorite Absurd Creatures of 2016 – the magnificent sex, food and fighting obsessed rhino beetle, the fish-bashing kingfisher bird and the aptly named peanut-head bugs.

Obsessive distiller Bryan Davis invented a contraption for aging booze fast. His goal: to create highly engineered, rapidly prototyped sprits that are unlike any you've tasted before.

Campbell, Eric, 1960-

Rotch Library - DS371.4.A725 2013