I will never forget the first time I saw an oarfish…
There I was sitting at my desk... click, click, click, ...clicking away at some websites. Eventually, I managed to stumble upon a strange creature, its image sprawled across my computer screen. My first thought: Woah! The only word I could manage to say in the midst of my amazement. Its long body was stretched across the arms of 10 men. Its crimson red fins followed its length, head to toe. Its eyes, like icey blue pools, mesmerizing me.
You would think it was Photoshop, being unlike anything you had ever seen, heard, or dreamed of. You would think it was a dragon. All this time we spent thinking that dragons didn’t exist, when really they were hiding under the seas. You would think it had come straight from a cartoon. It’s large eyes, vivid color, and fins, almost too unreal.
But no, you would be wrong.
It was an oarfish, an unheard of animal, so unique, rare, and strange.
That’s what I like about the oarfish, how strange it is. It’s so different for the “norm”, so different from the dogs, cats, and birds we’re surrounded by. When I first saw its picture, it changed the pace of my day, and added some excitement. If you haven’t already, O-A-R-F-I-S-H. Google it.

Soon after my encounter with the oarfish, I began to research other strange animals, and boy was I amazed. Just within the first result that popped up on Google, I was stunned by the many strange animals that I had never seen, heard, or dreamed of. It wasn’t that hard to find them either. Despite me never knowing about these animals, they had been right in front of my face all this time. They were just two words away from me discovering them. “Strange,” and “Animals”. And upon entering those two words into my google search bar, my eyes became flooded with the images of these odd creatures.
The pacu fish, being an unordinary fish, with its large glossy eyes, slick black body, and its dencher like teeth. The gerenuk, being an unordinary antelope, with its with large body, its small head, and its other disproportionate features. The cassowary, being an unordinary bird, with its dinosaur resemblance, its ostrich like torso, and its bright coloring.
After seeing the array of animals, each so interesting and unique in their own way, I was reminded of all the strange that is still out there. I was convinced that seeing and learning about these animals could inspire us to make our world a better and more exoctic place. That’s why we need more strange. We need more exposure to animals like these so we can gain that strange. It was only by chance that I happened upon the oarfish, a happy accident. For if I hadn’t found that single image of the oarfish that day, hidden among the many other web pages and ads displayed, who knows if I ever would.
The oarfish, pacu fish, gerenuk, and cassowary, are just a few examples of the many strange creatures I found that day, but that doesn’t mean they were the only ones. No there are many others, like the tarsier, giant coconut crab, or the proboscis monkey. You probably haven’t heard of many of these, adding to their bizarreness.
You might think that’s what makes these animals so strange, the fact that they are little known. You might think these animals are strange because you’re surprised by their odd appearance. You might think that they’re strange just because they’re so different from the other animals you’re exposed to. You might think that animals can only be strange for their appearance.
But what you don’t realize is that even some of the most ordinary animals have oddities of their own, thought their oddities aren't found in their appearance, but in their actions. Just take the flamingo for example, it’s an animal well known to many, who can only eat with its head upside down. Or the dolphin, a favorite of Sea World visitors, who only uses half of its brain to sleep, and the other half to keep it from drowning. Then there’s also the koala, a symbol of Australia, whose fingerprints resemble a human fingerprint. And even the snail, something we’ve all seen come out after a rain storm, can sleep for three years without ever waking.
These are animals you have most definitely heard of, or have even seen in real life. Yet how many of you already know these facts? Not enough.
These strange facts change your view of these animals, making them appear strange,although they are familiar. These facts show us how much strange is out there. How much strange is right in front of us and not being discovered. How much strange we aren’t being exposed to.
It’s not that hard to find the strange, we’re just not seeing it. The problem? We’re not looking. That’s why we don’t know these interesting facts about these well known animals.
Strange can be found in anything, the known, the unknown, everyday items, or even events. So you be might wondering why we should care about strange animals. Why shouldn’t we be looking for strange in places like the world of technology or in culinary? Why should we bother with finding strange in the animal kingdom? And I’ll tell you why.
Humans have a tendency to be vain. Ignorant. Greedy. Selfish. Forgetful. But animals remind us that we aren’t the only beings on this planet. They’re our neighbors, so why don’t we “love thy neighbor”?
If we aren’t reminded of all the species that we share our planet with, we’ll forget them. We need to be reminded that they’re still here. We need to be reminded of our curiosity for them. We need to be reminded of how strange these animals are. If we use their strangeness as a way of attracting our attention, then there is so much these animals can do for us. So much more than technology, or food, or anything else. The strange we find in animals can remind us to open our eyes, learn, and become inspired.
As kids, curious and full of energy, we would play with ant hills, rolly pollies, and worms. We used to play fetch with our dogs, cuddle with our cats, and even go to the zoo. But as we grow older, forgetting about these animals, we become obsessed with work, school, and life. These task drain our energy and make us forget about the other things out there. But there was once one man who didn’t forget. John James Audubon.
Although he wasn’t the only one to take an interest in the drawing of birds and other animals, his passion has made him one of the most famous. John Audubon didn’t let things like his job or his life get in the way of his love for birds and nature. Instead he incorporated his love for birds into other aspects of his daily life. He didn’t do this because he felt obligated, but rather because he was inspired by their strange and unique beauty.
This inspiration lead him to create some of the most beautiful and most famous paintings. John Audubon summarized his passion for the strange found in birds by saying, “I never for a day gave up listening to the songs of our birds, or watching their peculiar habits, or delineating them in the best way I could.”
His paintings are truly magnificent. All his paintings featured birds, depicted in their natural environment, drawn life size, and included insightful captions to educated the viewers. In his work you can see the passion that he had for the strange found in birds. This is the reason for why he captured them in his paintings.
Others saw his passion too, and decided to use his name and ideas to represent their organizations. The National Audubon Society, for example, is an organization that was inspired by John Audubon’s passion for the strange found in birds. That’s the whole reason for why they are currently a society focusing on birds, and the conservation of nature.
John James Audubon is the perfect example of a man who saw the strange in animals, but that doesn't mean he was the only one. There’s always other classics like Albrecht Dürer, Albertus Seba, and Henri Rousseau, who also took the interest in capturing the strange found in animals.
The work of these artists caught on and inspired others. Others, like the Audubon Society, that also saw the strange and potential animals hold. It’s a good thing we have organizations like this here today. We need them, because remember how I said that we might forget that these animals even exist? How if we don’t see their strange, we’ll lose them? Well it’s too late. We’re already are starting to.
There are many problems we face today, most of them created by humans. As a matter of fact, 99% of all the at risk animal species hold their status due to human caused events. Pollution, land destruction, and global warming being just a few. And because of these problems, we have side effects like habitat loss, Arctic Sea ice melting, Sea-level rising, and invasive species.
Humans know that these problems are occurring, but they forget that we aren’t the only ones dealing with them. In fact, many species across the globe are also feeling the many hardships. The biggest hardship of them all? Extinction.
According to the WWF, we are experiencing an extinction rate unheard of since the extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. They also predict that, in the next 30 years, 20% of the world’s 7-15 million animals could go extinct. Just within a year, experts from the WWF, have calculated that between 0.01% and 0.1% of animal will become extinct. So, if the extinction rate was just 0.01%, that would mean that as many as 10,000 species will go extinct every year. Even the African Conservancy estimates that for every 3,500 humans added to the world, we lose more than one animal and plant species.
Now these are just estimations based off calculations, so you could assume that the actual numbers are much lower, or much higher. But what we do know is that If we continue down this path, if our species keeps creating problems, if these animals keep dying out, we’ll never know what strange is. We would lose it forever. And that, would be unthinkable.
Just try to imagine a world without strange...
There would be no animals in this world. No worries about the destruction of our earth. No bystanders. No creatures living beside us with odd talents. No love for things different from what’s around us.
There would be no oarfish. No exclamations of surprise. No bizarre looking species. No animals so different from our own faces. No oddities found among the tasks of daily life.
There would be no inspiration. No reason to discover. No reason to learn. No cause for a cause. No art created by people with a passion. No inspiration for this editorial.
None of that.
Just us left alone in a boring world only seen in black and white. With people, practically carbon copies of each other, just getting through their day. While around us, the Earth would be falling apart due to our toxic actions.
We would be boring, forgetting about all the small fascinations found in our large world. We would be too caught up in the technology that surrounds us, rather than the nature and its beauty. We would never know, or understand, how necessary the animals around us are. How much we could gain from them, like education and inspiration. Or how they can change our lives and start so much. We would be so much without strange, and yet, all of it would be worthless.
This is why we need strange.
So with that I urge you: Look for the strange in daily life, because without it, we’d be worse off. Think about your actions, and not only how they affect you, but the others on this planet. And if you can, donate money to organizations like the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), or the Audubon Society. Help them keep the strange on this planet for the many years to come.
Whatever you choose to do, just always remember the strange, because strange isn’t just strange...
It’s “animal” strange.