10 Terrifying Creatures Of The Amazon River

The Amazon rain forest is an immense ecosystem, providing a habitat for creatures as weird and wonderful as the jaguar, the poison dart frog and the Jesus lizard. But it’s home to more than just the animals that prowl, swing, and slither through the trees. In the depths of the Amazon River, the largest river in the world, live creatures so amazing and so terrifying, that they make Jaws look like a nice, relaxing swim in the ocean.

10 Black Caiman

A black caiman is basically an alligator on steroids. They can grow up to six meters (20 feet) long, with bigger, heavier skulls than Nile crocodiles, and are the apex predator in the Amazonian waters. That means they are basically the kings of the river—they eat nearly anything they can get their teeth into, including piranhas, monkeys, perch, deer, and anaconda.
Oh, and yes, they totally attack humans. In 2010, a biologist named Deise Nishimura was attacked by a caiman while cleaning a fish on her houseboat, and while she managed to fight it off, it took one of her legs with it. This particular caiman had been living under her houseboat for eight months, evidently waiting for the chance to strike.

9 Green Anaconda

 

Continuing with the theme of gigantic reptiles, the largest snake in the world makes its home in the Amazon: the anaconda. While reticulated pythons are actually longer, green anaconda are far heavier; the females, generally larger than males, can reach 250 kilograms (550 lbs), grow to nine meters (over 29 feet) long and reach 30 centimeters (12 in) in diameter. They are not venomous but instead use their immense muscular power to constrict and suffocate their prey, which includes capybara, deer, caiman, and even jaguars. Preferring shallower waters that allow them to stealthily sneak up on their prey, they tend to live in offshoots of the Amazon rather than the river itself.

8 Arapaima

Arapaima, also known as “pirarucu” or “paiche,” are gigantic carnivorous fish that live in the Amazon and surrounding lakes. Encased in armored scales, they think nothing of living in piranha-infested waters—and they are pretty effective predators themselves, feeding on fish and the occasional bird. Arapaima tend to stay close to the surface, because they need to breathe surface air in addition to taking in oxygen through their gills, and make a distinctive coughing sound when they emerge for air. They can reach 2.7 meters (nine feet) in length and weigh up to 90 kilograms (200 lbs). These fish are so vicious that even their tongue has teeth.

 

7 Giant Otter

 

Heading up the “exactly what it says on the tin” category are the giant otters, who, as their name suggests, are very large otters. They are the longest examples of the weasel family, with adult males reaching up to two meters (over six feet) from head to tail. Their diet primarily consists of fish and crabs, which they hunt in family groups of three to eight members, and they can eat up to four kilograms (nine pounds) of seafood per day. Don’t be fooled by their cute looks, though—they are more than a match for the other animals on this list, with groups of them having been spotted killing and eating an anaconda. They hold their own against caiman as well. One family was seen devouring a 1.5 meter (five foot) caiman, which took them about 45 minutes. While their numbers are dwindling, mainly due to human intervention, they are among the most capable predators in the Amazon rain forest, hence their local name of “river wolves.”

 

6 Candiru

The Amazon doesn’t only breed giants, and the small creatures are just as terrifying, at least if you believe the stories that surround them. Candiru are small, parasitic, freshwater catfish famous for launching themselves up the urethra of anyone foolish enough to urinate in the river, and getting lodged into the urinary tract because of the spines that run along their backs. While documented cases are rare, and there is some debate over whether these types of injuries occur at all, there is at least one documented case of a man requiring surgery to remove a candiru from his urethra—which had also attempted to burrow through to his testicles. However, the candiru usually preys on fish, attaching themselves to the larger fish’s gills with their spines and feeding on their host’s blood.

5 Bull Sharks

 

While technically ocean-dwelling saltwater animals, bull sharks are quite at home in fresh water, too—they have been found as far down the Amazon as Iquitos in Peru, almost 4,000 kilometers (2,500 mi) from the sea. They have special kidneys that can sense the change in salinity of the surrounding water and adapt accordingly. And you do not want to meet one of these in the river; it is common for them to reach 3.3 meters (11 ft) in length and there have been reports of sharks weighing 312 kilograms (690 lbs). Like many sharks, they have several rows of sharp, triangular teeth and immensely powerful jaws, with a bite force of 589 kilograms (1,300 lb). They’re also quite partial to a bit of human, being one of the most frequent attackers of people (along with tiger sharks and great whites). Combined with their habit of living near densely populated areas, this has led many experts to label them the most dangerous sharks in the world.

 

4 Electric Eels

 

Electric eels are actually more closely related to catfish than eels, but you probably wouldn’t want to get close enough to one to find out. They can grow up to 2.5 meters (eight feet) long and can produce jolts of electricity from specialized cells called electrocytes arranged down their flanks. These charges can reach up to 600 volts, five times the charge of an average American plug socket, and enough to knock a horse off its feet. While one shock isn’t enough to kill a healthy adult human, multiple shocks can cause heart or respiratory failure, and it’s common for people to be stunned and drown after an eel attack. Many of the disappearances recorded in the region have been attributed to eels that have stunned their victims and left them to drown in the river. Luckily for our species, the eels, while carnivorous, tend to stick to eating fish, amphibians, birds, and small mammals. They locate their prey by sending out small, 10-volt shocks from their electrocyte cells, before stunning or killing them with larger shocks.

 

3 Red-Bellied Piranhas

 

The quintessential terror of the Amazon River, so widely feared that they have inspired a number of questionable Hollywood movies, red-bellied piranhas are actually primarily scavengers. That’s not to say they won’t attack healthy creatures; after all, given that they can grow to be over 30 centimeters (12 in) long and swim around in large groups, they tend to be more than a match for most animals. Like all piranhas, red-bellies have incredibly sharp teeth, one row on each of their powerful upper and lower jaws. These teeth are interlocking, which makes them perfect for tearing and rending the flesh of their prey. Their fearsome reputation mainly comes from sights of their “feeding frenzies,” where groups of piranhas will congregate on their unlucky prey and strip it to the bone within minutes. These attacks are rare and are usually the result of starvation or provocation.

 

2 Payara (Vampire Fish)

 

Anything with the name “vampire fish” should automatically be recognized as scary (even after Twilight), and payara are no exception. They are absolutely ferocious predators, capable of devouring fish up to half their own body size. Given that they can grow up to 1.2 meters (four feet) long, this is no mean feat. A large part of their diet is made up of piranhas, which should give you some idea of how tough these fanged fiends can be. They get their name from the two tusks that sprout from their lower jaw, which can grow up to 15 centimeters (six inches) long and which they use to literally impale their prey after viciously lunging at them. Their fangs are so big, in fact, that they have special holes in their upper jaw to avoid impaling themselves.

1 Pacu

 

One animal certain to be far more terrifying to men than to women, the pacu is a much larger relative of the piranha, known for its distinctive, human-like teeth. Unlike most of the creatures on this list, the pacu is actually omnivorous, and a good part of its diet is comprised of fruit and nuts. Unfortunately for some pacu, “nuts” may not only mean things that drop from trees. Yes, that’s right: Pacu are alleged to have occasionally bitten off the testicles of male swimmers, with reports of men in Papua New Guinea being killed by pacu after the fish apparently mistook their genitalia for an easy snack. Oh, and don’t worry if you can’t make it to the Amazon to see these manhood-masticating monsters, because they’re already spreading into Europe.

Source: Listverse.com

Krokodil, Flesh-Eating Drug, Reported In Arizona (GRAPHIC VIDEO)

A homemade drug that causes severe damage to the flesh of those who use it has reportedly shown up in the U.S.
Previously reported in Russia, Krokodil, a disfiguring and potentially lethal mixture of codeine and hydrocarbons such as oil, paint thinner, gasoline or alcohol, has made its way to Arizona.
According to doctors at Banner Poison Control Center, two cases of the drug have been reported in the state in the past week.
“As far as I know, these are the first cases in the United States that are reported... We're extremely frightened," Dr. Frank LoVecchio, the co-medical director at the center, told KLTV.
Users filter and boil the drug before injecting it. Although LoVecchio said users believe the process removes the impurities, they are wrong.
Once injected, the drug causes damage to blood vessels and tissue that cause flesh to rot from the inside out. The horrific sores that some users develop resemble crocodile skin, which lends the street drug its name. The average life expectancy of a krokodil user is about three years, according to KSAZ.


Disturbing images of the drug's grisly side-effects have been reported before. The images are said to have originated in Russia, where between a few hundred thousand and a million people injected the drug in 2010, according to Time.
LoVecchio told KLTV that the main attraction to the drug is the cost: It is reportedly 20 times cheaper than heroin, but produces a similar high. He believes that the two cases in Arizona may be related, according to Gawker.

Source: Huffingtonpost.com

There Are 'Black Holes' In The Ocean, Say Scientists

Nothing escapes the yawning chasm of a black hole.
Not matter, sound nor even light.
Normally confined to the reaches of space, black holes and their seemingly insatiable appetites for everything, have fascinated — and enlightened — scientists for years.
Now, they may not have to look so far to study them.
Researchers at Switzerland's ETH Zurich and the University of Miami say black holes are among us — at least, massive eddies in the southern Atlantic Ocean bear their telltale signatures.
What a black hole is to light, an ocean eddy, scientists suggest, is to water. Dubbed maelstroms, they're bigger than cities, winding up billions of tonnes of ocean water so tightly, nothing escapes them.

 

In a paper published earlier this month in the Journal of Fluid Mechanics, George Haller, a professor at ETH Zurich and Francisco Beron-Vera of the University of Miami claim they can track and define these engorged eddies — a feat that has, until now, proven elusive.
The ocean's natural turbulence has thwarted previous attempts to demarcate these islands of intensity. But, by studying satellite imagery, Haller and Baron-Vera were able to identify seven black-hole types in a group of eddies, called Agulhas Rings, that regularly appear off the tip of Africa.

Their conclusion?
Maelstroms have the same mathematical properties as black holes.
Now, consider a real black hole. As explained in Science World Report, there's a point where light being sucked into a black hole stops spiraling -- bending instead, before returning to its usual position. The result is a circular orbit.
The dramatic effect of these closed light orbits, dubbed a 'photon sphere' by Albert Einstein, finds a parallel in these ocean vortexes, according to scientists. Essentially, the maelstrom whips up its own closed barriers, pressing whatever was sucked inside so tightly that not even a drop of these fluid particles can escape.
In fact, researchers have found eddies bearing the same bodies of water without leaking a drop for nearly a year.
”Mathematicians have been trying to understand such peculiarly coherent vortices in turbulent flows for a very long time,” George Haller explained in a statement.
That stunning sense of stability makes maelstroms something of a transportation device. Everything from the tiniest organisms to waste or oil to higher-temperature water is transported perfectly intact throughout the oceans before the maelstroms eventually lose their charge.
As the study authors note, they "create moving oases for the marine food chain or even impact climate change through their long-range transport of salinity and temperature."

By casting light on these black holes (Yes, we know how impossible that sounds), researchers could unravel the mystery of how pollution spreads throughout the environment, ETH Life reports. These maelstroms may also help scientists develops ways to at least slow down the melting of global sea ice.


Source: Huffingtonpost.ca