Zoologger is our weekly column highlighting extraordinary animals – and occasionally other organisms – from around the world.

Species: Symbion pandora

Habitat: In the eastern Atlantic Ocean – on the mouthparts of Norway lobsters (also known as Dublin Bay prawns or langoustines)

There’s no question that discovering a new species is very cool. But how about discovering a new phylum?

A phylum is a broad division in taxonomy: all vertebrates, for example, from fish to humans, are in the chordate phylum. In 1995, Peter Funch and Reinhardt Møbjerg Kristensen, both then at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, discovered an animal so unlike any other that a new phylum – Cycliophora – had to be created just for it.

Read more: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18834-zoologger-the-most-bizarre-life-story-on-earth.html

In the Dark Ages in Europe, things were dark for a reason, not the least of which was that, with the lights on, a typical man might wonder why his girlfriend had weasel balls strapped to her leg.

Ancient Egyptians were a crafty lot, what with those pyramids and that cool dance and mummies and all. It’s no surprise then that they were some of the first people to cook up a method of birth control that actually worked. They had figured out that you could stop the pregnancy if you had some kind of, uh, blockage there.

In the 16th century, Canadians agreed that the testicles of small furry animals were key to pregnancy prevention. They were far more advanced than those silly, superstitious Europeans, so they got the brilliant idea to use moonshine with beaver testicles in it.

Ah, delicious, hot mercury. From the old days when it was considered a cure for almost everything, to the future when we’ll make terminators out of it, mercury never goes out of style.

Condoms are not, as you’d suspect, the result of some drunken man looking at a party balloon and getting an idea. The idea of wrapping one’s wang for delivery has been around for ages, long before latex, Saran Wrap and tube socks were viable options.

You know what else will never go out of style? Opium. Long before recorded history, there have been segments of the population who decided that everything could be made a little better with a little bit of opium thrown in.

By the 1700s, most had realized that dried turds and hard metals probably had no rightful place in a woman’s lady parts. That’s when some enterprising man or woman looked at a lemon half, and got an idea. OK, it was probably a man.

Nothing says “baby-free” or “massive brain damage” quite like drinking filthy, toxic sludge–a theory proved positive by the childless, Listerine-drinking hobo who lives by the dumpster out back.

The modern age isn’t all enlightenment and ribbed condoms. For a time, not too long ago (and in fact, probably as recent as last Wednesday) people were under the impression a can of Coke was as good as the morning after pill. And they weren’t drinking it.

Source:

History’s 10 Most Terrifying Contraceptives

Making sand out of diamonds is something I’ve never heard of. But it’s been done and the people that accomplished this made a sand clock with it. The clock is located in Thailand and is being sold for $6,400,000.

http://skirmisher.org/strange-artifacts/the-most-expensive-sand-clock/

1. Rafflesia arnoldii:

2. Hydnora africana,

3. Dracunculus vulgaris:

4. Amorphophallus: means, literally, “shapeless penis.”

Read more: the four most unusual plants out there.