Animals that don't Exist

The Invisible Giraffe

The invisible giraffe, Giraffa transparensis, probably is the most mysterious animal in the world. In fact, it is so mysterious that almost nothing is known about it. Having never been seen, the only thing we do know about the invisible giraffe is that it exists. Probably.

Ancient stories and legends from the African continent talk about an invisible animal that sometimes wrecks havoc in remote villages. It is believed that this animals is at least five meters tall (~16 feet). This conclusion was made after analyzing the wreckage of the villages it passed through (or, more precisely, is believed to have passed through). Since there is no other animal than the giraffe with that height in Africa, people have deduced that it must have been an invisible giraffe.

What does the invisible giraffe eat? Where does it live? How many of them are there? What does it look like? We don't know, and we may very well never find out.

Scientists have written entire books about the invisible giraffe, and how it might live. From the little factual evidence of its existence, they have extrapolated entire treatises, not one of which tells the same story.

Psychologists have theorized that the invisible giraffe is a safe haven for biologists that are under to much pressure to find exact results, or that have been ridiculed by their peers for mistakes made in the past. Because no matter what you say about the invisible giraffe, no one will be able to prove that you're wrong.

Countdown

I'm counting down. One day after another, I'm counting down. Dragging myself along, hour after hour, I'm counting down. There is nothing worse than waiting.

Like a horse before the gunshot, I'm itching to go. I have it all laid out in front of me. I know exactly how it's going to happen. Now all I have to do is wait. And wait. And wait...

And by the time it'll come around, my carefully laid-out plan will have crumbled to dust, and I'll be milling around in confusion. Because that's the way life goes.

Animals that don't Exist

The Ash Maggot

The ash maggot, Muscus cinis, is a close relative to the common housefly. Considering genetic analysis only, it could even be doubted whether or not they are truly distinct species. But if we take into account the life-circle of both animals, the ash maggot merits its own place in the linnean classification system.

Ash maggots, as their name indicates, live in ash. But no just any ash. Indeed, ash maggots are found exclusively in cigarette ash. Another thing that sets ash maggots apart from the common housefly is that they stay maggots their entire life, never pupating into the flying adult form. This has raised quite a few questions, since ashtrays are far from being a stable habitat. How do the maggots end up in the ashtray, if their parents were swept into the trash the last time it was emptied?

When the rather peculiar habitat and life cycle of ash maggots was first discovered, it raised quite a few questions. Why would they choose such a hostile environment? How did they manage to keep a stable population, when ashtrays are being emptied daily? And why did they evolve to loose their flying form? Scientists have tried their best to find answers to these questions, but for now, nothing is certain.

Dr. Hendrik van der Pupe, of the Dutch Institute for Uninhabitable Habitats and their Inhabitants (DIUHI) speculates that a hostile environment greatly reduces niche competition, so that whatever species can survive in a hostile environment will colonize it simply because of the lack of competitors. Prof. Jeanmi de la Ronde, on the other hand, is of the opinion that it is competition that drove the maggots to colonize our ashtrays, and not the lack thereof. De la Ronde believes that ash maggots first adopted a maggot-only life-circle, and later on, because of selective pressure from their flying relatives, were forced to migrate to the ashtrays.

Even though ash maggots have been discovered recently, they are already facing severe threats. Since the surge of anti-tobacco lobbies, ashtrays have become fewer and fewer, threatening the natural habitat of ash maggots. In addition, it seems that the reduction in added chemicals in todays cigarettes also has a detrimental effect on ash maggot populations, and it is very well possible that this species will go extinct before we ever understand all of its secrets.

Animals that don't Exist

The Time Fish

The time fish, Salmon temporalis, although being an animal, might be of more interest to physicists rather than biologists, although this is still the subject of a heated debate. The time fish is the least know, least studied, and least seen animal on the planet. Nonetheless, we cannot say that it is rare. Not with certainty.

Unlike every other animal known to this day, and unlike anything else we know of, the time fish is capable of traveling through time. It is not, however, able to move through space, relative to earth. This results in it being seen always at the same place.

In 2013, Dr. Jay Yeller, of the Institute of Advanced Coffee Consumption of Princeton (IACCP) went to take a walk in the forest near his house. As he was taking a break in a clearing, he suddenly saw a fish swim into existence in front of him. “I didn't care much about the fish, but the way it came into existence was fascinating!”, the young physicist told the 'Journal of Advanced Coffee Consumption'. Yeller theorized the fish might move through time and not space, and that it would reappear at the same spot. And it did. A picture of the fish taken by Yeller allowed biologists to identify the fish as belonging to the salmon family.

Beyond the possibility of time travel, the discovery of the time fish has raised a number of interesting questions. After Yeller found the initial specimen in Princeton, time fish-sightings, both fake and real, have started appearing all over the globe. Whether this is due to a clear picture of what to look for, or because our time is especially suited for time fish, is unclear.

It is also unknown how the fish reproduce. Although the fish has not been studied for long, DNA-testing seems to indicate that only one individual will occupy one place in space, which raises the question how mates find each other. Physicists have several explanations.

The time fish might all mate at the big bang, when time and space where one. Or the universe might be headed to a singularity, where the fish could mate. Some have proposed that the fish might be able to “jump” from one location to another. But this last method would have been revealed by DNA-testing, which has not happened so far.

Thanks to a joint task force of physicists and biologists, it has been deduced that it can swim through a time-span that is longer than its own life, meaning that the life of a time fish is shorter than all of time. Otherwise, the time fish would always be visible, although states of development would not appear in chronological order (this last fact is the case, larvae appearing later in time than the same individual as a fully grown adult).

There is still much to discover about the time fish. Certain old legends seem to reference it, and it is certain to have had a strong, as of yet unnoticed, influence on culture. In addition, conservationists are wondering what it might tell us about the state of the earth, and our environment. Hopefully the time fish will keep appearing long enough for us to find the answers to these questions.

Reason

Reason knows neither Love nor Hate. Society today, with its longing for stable jobs and normal lives, with its targeted advertising, seems to be hell-bent on eliminating randomness, and living a life of reason. But although reason can be a powerful tool, reason knows neither Love nor Hate.

When we live in a world of reason, our fate is set. We have no escape. Only the roads that lay before us. And even if we can choose different roads, we can never step off them. Reason knows neither Hope nor Despair.

Animals that don't Exist

The True Sea Monkey

The true sea monkey, Pan veritas, no to be confused with the commercially sold sea-monkey, Artemia NYOS, is a little-known representative of the chimp-family. Living on the coasts of western Africa, true sea monkeys (hereafter “sea monkeys”) have suffered from pollution and over-fishing, and their numbers have dwindled. Because of their cautious nature, humans seldom saw the sea monkeys. Although this protected the sea monkeys from hunters, it also left us unable to make any conservation efforts, and their situation worsened. Since their recent discovery by Prof. Seoseo of the Bamako Institute for the Study of Almost Extinct Species (BISAES), scientists from all over the world want to study the sea monkeys, and funding has been granted for their conservation by the WWF, the U.N., GreenPeace, the I.M.F., and local governments.

Although his cousins are vegetarians most of the time, the sea monkey eats a diet consisting mainly of fish and crustaceans. Another adaptation to his nautical habitat is the thickness of his fur. To prevent heat-loss, and reduce water resistance, sea monkeys have an extremely thick fur, similar to that found on sea lions. In addition, their hands and feet are webbed, allowing them to move freely in the water.

The sea monkeys seem to live in groups of ten to twenty individuals. One individual, presumed male, shows clear anatomical differences to the others, which identifies him as the leader. As is the case in other groups of primates. In other aspects as well, a group of sea monkeys tends to resemble that of other apes. There is grooming, as well as communal child care. And before going to sleep, they build a nest with algae and driftwood to sleep atop the waves.

After the sea monkeys were discovered, ethnologists working in the region made a connection between the animals and a local legend. The legends tells of a spirit of the sea, who is known to save or attack fishermen, depending on whether or not they behave with respect towards the sea. When comparing the prevalence of that legend against the presence of sea monkeys, the two charts see to match.

It is also believed that before being reduced to a few hundred individuals at the most, the sea monkeys occupied the whole west coast of Africa, and could very well be the origin of some of the folklore surrounding mermaids.

Animals that don't Exist

The Dreaming Coral

The dreaming coral, Galaxea otis, native to the Great Barrier Reef, is considered by many the most intriguing species known to man. Although at first, the dreaming coral is indistinguishable from its cousins, it has one characteristic which has captured the imagination of people all over the world. To understand this fascination, we must first explore the phylum of the cnidaria.

The cnidaria, which consists of coral, jellyfish and anemones, are widely believed to be the first phylum to possess nerve cells. Although not yet organized into a complex system, as is the case in vertebrates and insects, the cnidaria have cells whose sole purpose it is to transmit information from one cell to another. The first neuron.

Although most cnidarians live solitary live, some, like those found in corals, aggregate into colonies. They live in close proximity, and are believed to maintain “channels of communication” with each other through chemicals released into the water. In dreaming corals, however, this communication is taken a step further.

Instead of relying solely on chemical signals, the polyps of the dreaming coral extend their nerve cells to come into contact with their neighbors. When several branches intersect, communication “nodes” are formed.

When considering the complex structure of dreaming corals, combined with the number of connections made, the dreaming coral has a neural system as elaborate as that of the human brain. In addition, just as is the case with connections in our brains, the firing rate as well as the threshold of neural activation is dependent on the frequency with which a certain connection is established.

First discovered by Phd. Lebert François in 1998, the existence of another nervous system as complex as ours shook the world. Scientists have struggled since to unravel the workings of this “super-mind”. In 2013, Prof. Mike Rowave spent three months equipping the coral with electromagnetic sensors, in order to record an “electroencephalogram” of the coral's 'mind'. The resulting image showed the same activity pattern as one might expect in the brain of a dreaming human. However, the name of the coral predates this experience by several centuries. It was the Aborigines who told the name of the coral to British explorers when they first came to Australia.