1. Frogfish

I don’t want to offend anyone but frogfish are definitely not the prettiest fish in the sea. Some would say it’s very strange-looking, and I totally agree. Besides not being very handsome, it’s also a bad swimmer. That’s quite bizarre, considering that it lives in the water.

The frogfish likes to stay close to the ocean floor, but you shouldn’t underestimate it, as it is a spectacular hunter. Their ugliness helps them attract prey. To be more precise, they use their strange appendage that looks like a tiny group of dangling worms as bait. What’s awesome is that their appendage can regenerate in case it’s bitten off.

When they have the prey in their sight, these tiny fish can strike a lighting speed for as little as 6 milliseconds until the victim is immobilized, and then they open their huge wide mouth that helps them swallow animals twice their size.

The frogfish is known to be one of the strangest and most awesome predators, with the quickest ambush in the whole world. How awesome is that?

2. Margay

Margay is a very handsome nocturnal small cat that lives mostly in South and Central America. Because it is a small animal, margay usually hunts monkeys, squirrels, birds, lizards, tree frogs, and bird eggs, but it can also be vegetarian when needed.

Besides being a small cat, it has a unique method of hunting the prey. The margay has been found to imitate the calls of the prey. It can mimic sounds like monkey infant cries in order to attract the mother. This is a very smart and rare technique that helps margay to catch the prey without putting too much effort into the attack. Additionally, this method seems highly successful.

In 2009, a group of researchers working in the Amazon jungle (Brazil) confirmed that margay has the ability to mimic the calls of the prey. They saw a margay imitate exactly the sound of a pied tamarin baby, making the tamarins follow the calls. However, its attempt to catch the prey was proved to be unsuccessful, because the tamarin standing guard had plenty of time to warn the group by emitting a loud noise.

Even though the margay didn’t catch her prey at that time, the researchers were amazed about how well the cat could imitate those sounds, calling the strategy a “very effective in attracting prey”.

If you found this interesting, make sure to also check 12 Animals Named After the Noises They Make.