Animals I Hate

Albatrosses are so awful that they’re a metaphor for doom. Pictures don’t really do their suckiness justice. Albatrosses are famous for having the biggest wing span of any bird, and also from The Rescuers. They’re built to stay in the air, so these fuckers fly all the entire way around the god damn world (although not at the Equator, where it counts) in between mating seasons. So basically, they think they’re some kind of fucking indefatigable Superbirds all eating cuttlefish like they own the ocean, but then they get to some LAND and the game changes. Because even more than their wing span, more than The Rescuers, albatrosses are famous for tripping over their own fucking feet and faceplanting at least like half the time when they land. It’s easy to feel cool when you’re the only bird for two hundred miles, isn’t it Albatross?

Porcupines are big ol’ spiney rats. When I was a kid my grandpa used to terrify me by telling me how porcupines could shoot their quills at a target across the room, but this is crazy for a few reasons. First: Why? Why would they do that? If you wait until some dog has got his nose right in your belly, that is a guaranteed hit. Two: Why would I be afraid of porcupines? I lived in Ohio when I was a kid. Ohio does not have a porcupine problem, especially not indoor porcupines who attack children from across rooms. Three: Why would you even WANT to scare a little kid! What the hell grandpa?! I thought we were cool! But anyway, porcupines DO have spiny quills that will become dislodged if you touch them, and sometimes dogs want to be friends with a porcupine and then they have to go to the dog emergency room and it’s real sad. 

(Aw gosh I’m real sorry about all this, it’s just I got an iPad 2 for Christmas and this is literally the first time I’ve been on a regular computer since, and I’m having a lot of trouble thinking about animals because I’m too worried about what’s going in in Tiny Tower. Animals I Hate will resume daily posting January 1. Pinky swear!)

Fossas are Madagascar’s largest endemic predators. And since Madagascar is some random island that’s mostly famous for having the world’s loudest cockroaches, of course fossas are just twenty pound weasels. But they’re also the most depraved sexual libertines to walk the earth since David Bowie got married. Basically a lady just goes up in a tree, and lots of guys come around and start screaming and screaming and attacking each other until the lady decides that one of the guys is the best screamer and the most skilled bitch-slapper, and then they just go at it like crazy up in the tree, and did I mention that the male’s penis is fucking BARBED? Because you can’t be worried about slipping out when you’re worried about slipping out of a tree. And when they’re done the female just goes ahead and mates with all the other screaming guys who are waiting their turns down below, for up to FORTY HOURS STRAIGHT. Maybe it’s my prudish Puritan morals, but god damn fossas, leave some slutty for the rest of us.

Saiga antelopes are big giant dorks. They have huge inflatable noses that have been filtering dust since the fucking Pleistocene, when they used to stomp their stupid tiny feet all over the damn world, but now they pretty much stick to Kazakhstan. I guess their noses also warm air up in winter? That seems pretty unnecessary to me. I mean, I live in a pretty cold climate, it’s basically normal for my region to get two feet of snow and drop below zero in winter, AND people are always commenting on how adorably petite my nose is, but once the air is inside of my face the temperature is pretty comfortable. It’s not like I sleep outside or anything, but I also don’t grow a massive white coat, or even wear a coat, because wearing coats is for pussy bitches. Saiga antelopes, you are pussy bitches. Also they’re not even good antelopes. They’re practically sheep.

Surinam toads straight up make me want to barf. They are so gross that I want to die. The ladies lay a bunch of eggs and the dudes do some nasty sex thing to make the eggs land on the ladies’ backs, and then the eggs sink into their back flesh and make fleshy pockets and oh god oh god I’m gonna throw up and then the babies hatch out and shit seriously I am about to ruin my keyboard. I have to go scrub my back with the coarsest loofah I can find, brb.

Porbeagles are North Atlantic sharks. They have big round eyes and friendly smiles. Sometimes a porbeagle will roll around and around in a kelp patch until it gets tangled up in some, and then it will swim around with the kelp dangling behind it while all of it’s friends chase it and try to catch the kelp with their toothy shark mouths and oh how they titter and giggle! I just don’t trust these guys, not at ALL. It’s like they’ve studied people to find out what we think is adorable, but then they could only execute it in a terrifyingly alien way.

Blue-footed boobies are, uh…they’re seabirds, and, um… Shit, don’t pretend you don’t know. You know. I know. We all know! Boobies! God damn it! GOD DAMN IT. 

Cuban solenodons are one of the few animals with a conservation status of NEE (Not Endangered Enough). Their name, “solenodon,” is Latin for “channel tooth,” after the grooves in their lower incisors that help them deliver their poisonous saliva into the wounds of their victims. God damn it there is nothing that I hate more than a poison mammal. Why do you even need that, Cuban solenodons? You only eat bugs, and don’t you think that your face does a more than adequate job of scaring off predators all by itself? These things are pretty rare to come across (only 37 have ever been captured) because they spend the day sleeping underground, but apparently they’re total spazzes and will lose their fucking minds and chomp all over you if you give them trouble. God, if I’m lost in a fucking Cuban forest at night that is just the last thing I need.

Greater gliders are giant flying possums. Well, gliding possums anyway. Most gliders have membranes that extend from their ankles to their wrists, but greater gliders like to show off how fucking great they think they are by only having the membrane go from ankle to elbow. And as if that wasn’t enough they decided that they needed to have all the damn fur in Australia. I want to tie one to the end of a stick and use it to clean under my bed. They think they’re so fucking hot, gliding around with their goddamn wrists tucked under their chins like they’re posing for their class portraits. People would probably keep them as pets like sugar gliders, except that they have one of those annoyingly specialized diets, and I’m pretty sure that if you feed them after midnight they turn into gremlins.