Ten Weirdest New Animals of 2010

T. Rex Leech

Photograph courtesy PLoS ONE

A new leech king of the jungle, Tyrannobdella rex—or "tyrant leech king"—was discovered in the remote Peruvian Amazon, National Geographic News reported in April.

The up-to-three-inch-long (about seven-centimeter-long) leech has large teeth, like its dinosaur namesake Tyrannosaurus rex. What's more, the newfound critter's "naughty bits are rather small," noted study co-author Mark Siddall, curator of invertebrate zoology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

 

New Purple Octopus?

Photograph courtesy Bedford Institute of Oceanography

This unidentified purple octopus is one of 11 potentially new species found during a July deep-sea expedition off Canada's Atlantic coast.

 

"Yoda Bat"

Photograph courtesy Piotr Naskrecki, Conservation International

This tube-nosed fruit bat—which became a Web sensation as "Yoda bat"—is just one of the roughly 200 species encountered during two scientific expeditions to Papua New Guinea in 2009, scientists announced in October.

 

Sneezing Snub-Nosed Monkey

Photograph courtesy Ngwe Lwin

A new monkey species in Myanmar is so snub-nosed that rainfall is said to makes it sneeze—but that's apparently the least of its problems, conservationists announced in October.

 

"Ninja" Slug

Photograph courtesy Peter Koomen

Boasting a tail three times the length of its head, the newly described long-tailed slug is found only in the high mountains of the Malaysian part of Borneo, scientists said in April.

 

Wood-Eating Catfish

Photograph by Michael Goulding/Copeia

A new species of armored, wood-eating catfish (pictured underwater) found in the Amazon rain forest feeds on a fallen tree in the Santa Ana River in Peru in 2006.

 

The Simpsons Toad

Photograph courtesy Robin Moore, ILCP

Nosing around for "lost" amphibian species in western Colombia in September, scientists stumbled across three entirely new species—including this beaked toad.

 

 

Self-Cloning Lizard

Photograph courtesy Lee Grismer

You could call it the surprise du jour: A popular food on Vietnamese menus has turned out to be a lizard previously unknown to science, scientists said in November. 

 

Squid Worm

Photograph courtesy Laurence Madin, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Squid? Worm? Initially, this new species—with bristle-based "paddles" for swimming and tentacles on its head—so perplexed Census of Marine Life researchers that they threw in the towel and simply called it squidworm, National Geographic News reported in November.

 

Pink Handfish

Photograph courtesy Karen Gowlett-Holmes

Using its fins to walk, rather than swim, along the ocean floor in an undated picture, the pink handfish is one of nine newly named species described in a scientific review of the handfish family released in May.