Animals that don't Exist

The Dickhead

The dickhead, Capita penis, is one of the more obscure life-forms found on our planet today. Of unknown origin, it is the sole representative of its family known to date.

As its name suggests, the dickhead is tube-shaped, its “head” having the form of a chestnut. It has several nerve ganglions along the ventral part of its body, which suggests it might be distantly related to insects and the Annelida, although genetic analysis put it closer to the Chordata. As of today, its evolutionary history remains shrouded in mystery, and there is some speculation that the dickhead might well be the missing link between vertebrates and arthropodes.

As its form suggests, the dickhead moves like an earthworm, wiggling forward or backward by contracting its muscles, and then relaxing them. It preys mainly on small specimens of the Annelida, such as young earthworms or nematodes. It eats by ingesting prey through its frontal opening. Its digestive tube runs in a U-shape through its body, and the same opening is later used for excretion. However, the most interesting aspect of the dickhead is its reproductive mechanism.

When encountering a mate, dickheads cover their whole body in a slimy, whitish secretion. This secretion contains not only the sperm cells, but egg cells as well. The two dickheads will then rub against each other. If the genes of their immune system (the immune system is one of the aspects of genetic code which shows the most variability) are differentiated enough, the antibodies found in both secretion will lock onto each other, and the dickheads will be able to shed off the secretion, which will serve as nutrition for the fecundated eggs. If not, the eggs will still be fecundated, but without the nutritious secretion, their chances of survival are extremely low.

Dickheads have historically been ignored in most cultures where they were present, b it only because their semi-aquatic, subterranean lifestyle made them a rare sight. However, in recent times, the animal has become rather prominent in western countries, and it seems that it now has a cult following that sees it as the pinnacle of modern evolution. In evolutionary terms, of course, this statement is not valid, since the dickhead has been found in the fossil record for more than 300 million years.