The World's Most: World's Most Freaky Animals

The World's Most: World's Most Freaky Animals — page 3
WREATHED HORNBILL This distinctive bird has specialized ridges on the top of its beak Called casques they ASIA signify dominance and gender Mating for life the wreathed hornbill has a breeding practice akin to an ancient Egyptian burial When the female is ready to lay her eggs she builds a nest in a tree cavity The male then entombs her in the cavity sealing it with mud fruit and feces and leaving only a slender hole through which he feeds her and their chicks For roughly four months the female and her offspring depend solely on the male for their survival FACT BOX COLOR CODE The gender of wreathed hornbills is easily distinguished by the color of their throats The male’s throat is yellow and the female’s is blue MIMIC OCTOPUS Using color matching and shape-shifting this clever cephalopod avoids the jaws of its predators It imitates a range of creatures including a poisonous flatfish scooting along the seafloor and a lionfish swimming with its toxic spines erect Maybe its most incredible morph however is when imitating the venomous banded sea snake It conceals six of its arms in the sand and raises the other two now colored with thick black and beige stripes in opposite directions to resemble the reptile FACT BOX MARINE MIMICRY A jawfish in Indonesian oceans has trumped the expert mimic octopus it mimics the mimic octopus The yellow-and-black striped fish which normally stays hidden hitches a ride on the octopus wiggling its body like an extra tentacle 6