Isn’t that weird?

1 The fish with hands

Everyone knows that fish live in water, they move
by swimming, and they use their fins and tail to help
them move. But there’s an exception to every rule and
this is it. Named, appropriately, the handfish, these
odd fish have fins which look like hands, and they
use them to walk on the ocean floor. Four specimens
of this ten centimetre-long species were seen near
Tasmania, Australia. Handfish walk along the seabed
eating small worms and other creatures. They move
slowly and so must be an easy target for predators.
However, researchers think they may have a secret
weapon: a toxic skin that kills most attackers.

2 ‘Yoda’ bat
This little bat became an Internet sensation
because of its resemblance to the character
of Yoda in the Star Wars films. The bat was
discovered in Papua New Guinea, but so far it
hasn’t been named or officially classified. It’s just
one of over a hundred new species found on
scientific surveys of Papua New Guinea this year.
Scientists speculate that there could be many
more undocumented species in the more remote
mountains and forests of the area. The ‘Yoda’
bat is a fruit bat, with a diet of flowers and fruit,
and may play an important role in the rain forest
eco-system.

3 Is it a squid? Is it a worm?
This nine centimetre-long marine animal was a
big surprise to the researchers who first saw it. A
remotely-operated underwater vehicle captured
images of it at a depth of 2.8 kilometres in the sea
around the Philippines. It looks like a squid because
it has tentacles on its head. And it looks like a worm
because its body is divided into segments. So the
scientists, thinking it might be either a type of squid or
a kind of worm, decided to name it squidworm. Closer
examination shows it is indeed a worm and suggests it
could belong to a new family of segmented worms, but
the name of squidworm has stuck.

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