Who knew Mother Nature has a wicked sense of humor? As it turns out, there are countless mind-boggling things happening just outside your door. From a jalapeño disguised as a T-rex or a flower that looks like the cosmos, sometimes nature enjoys pulling tricks on all of us. Enjoy this collection of photos proving nature is the ultimate prankster.
A jalapeño that looks like a T-Rex
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We’re no paleontologists but the last time we checked, dinosaurs no longer roam the planet (thank goodness for that). We are happy to report that the closest relative to the Tyrannosaurus rex is this jalapeño pepper.
“This 5-inch moth we found in our yard today.”
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The biggest moth in the world hails from none other than Tropical North Queensland, Australia! The almighty Hercules Moth has a whopping wingspan of 27 centimeters. The largest-ever Hercules Moth had a wingspan of 36 centimeters or 14 inches.
“Melted ice on my balcony looks like a cheetah in stride.”
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Ice formations usually come in the shape of an inverted icicle that projects upwards like a spike. Although ice spikes have been reported for many decades, their occurrence is quite rare. Even rarer still is an ice formation in the shape of a cheetah such as this one.
When your eggplant looks like Mr. Potato Head.
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Today we learned that the eggplant family is diverse. These berries- yes, eggplants are technically fruits- have a wild family tree that is hard to classify them into discrete groups. We’ve got Asian varieties, green varieties, green, white, red and orange varieties, and apparently, also a new Mr. Potato Head variety.
A baby snail hanging with a giant snail (who knew they could grow to that size?).
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We are here to let you know that snails can reach ridiculous sizes. One of the largest terrestrial snails, full-grown adults can reach almost 8 inches (20 cm) long and 5 inches (13 cm) in diameter.
What a tree looks like after a beaver has chewed on it for a bit.
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Beavers are one of the largest rodents on earth and their large rodent teeth never stop growing. The beavers constantly gnawing on wood keeps their teeth from growing too long. There are two species of beaver: the North American beaver and the European beaver. And that concludes today’s segment on beavers!
“Thought it was a tattoo. Turns out it’s just the world’s tiniest gecko.”
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If there is one thing all people can agree on it’s that tiny geckos are adorable. Absolutely the cutest of all creepy crawlies out there roaming the earth. We’re giving this little dude a 12/10 on the cuteness scale.
Someone created snowball “blossoms” on a section of trees & bushes in Central Park.
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New Yorkers are notoriously creative, innovative, and fun people. Although it’s touted as the Concrete Jungle, New York City does have some gorgeous pieces of greenery, most famous being Central Park. Here we can see the tracks of a native New Yorker.
Night Sky Petunia looks like a galaxy.
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Sometimes called galaxy flower, this gorgeous purple flower with white starry speckles bloom all season long. The starry effect of the white spots are completely mesmerizing. Seriously, we can’t stop looking at this flower.
The inside of this apple looks exactly like this owl.
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Before today you might have thought that owls and pears don’t really have much in common. And yet, here we are, folks, observing a rare phenomenon in which nature mimics nature. It’s called survival.
This monster of a collard featuring the bird Merlin for scale.
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First of all, a round of applause please for Merlin the cockatiel’s riveting performance in this photo. Simply adorable. Bravo, Merlin, bravo. Second, oh mother of all green things, what is this monster collard doing?
A hawk moth caterpillar can transform itself to look like a snake.
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At first glance, you might think this is a pit viper, but actually it’s just a harmless caterpillar! The hawk moth caterpillar disguises itself as a small snake to ward of predators. When facing a potential threat, the hawk moth caterpillar takes the form of a pit viper.
Little field mouse strikes again.
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Is it a hamster, a rat, or a mouse? The world may never know. But what we do know is that this little guy certainly went for it when he decided to climb up this farmer’s pants and take a bit. Oh dear.
Baby grasshoppers looking like a swarm of aliens.
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Though they might look like little green aliens, these guys are baby grasshoppers. Fun fact: they are among what is probably the most ancient living group of chewing herbivorous insects, dating back around 250 million years ago.
This cranky rock formation
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Upon extensive research, we have discovered that this very cranky rock formation can be found in Stara Baška, Primorsko-Goranska, Croatia. If someone is ever there, please take your best selfie with it!
A literal facepalm
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Seeing faces in places where they’re not supposed to be is a pretty common thing, and we bet it’s happened to you too. There’s even a word that describes this phenomenon called pareidolia.
Bird in an orchid
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Okay, so some people say it looks like a few different things inside this orchid: an eagle, a Pokemon, a baby alien. We say it looks like an eagle or a phoenix rising from the ashes.
Cicada with McDonald’s logo
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There are plenty of species of cicadas out there in the wild, but we’re going to bet our next happy meal a McDonald’s cicada is rather rare. We’re calling on citizen scientists to let us know if they ever stumble upon this rare creature.
Apple still loading
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There are two kinds of people in the world: those who swear by Apple or Android. Team Apple has a dedicated following as does Android. But if this is the kind of Apple product we’re going to be given, we’re switching to team Android.
A rare desert bloom in the Atacama desert in Chile.
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One of the driest regions on Earth transforms nearly overnight from a desert into a beautiful garden of many colors. That’s because heavy rains in mid-August have caused thousands of flowers to bloom. This periodic phenomenon in Chile’s Atacama Desert is known locally as desierto florido (flowering desert). It typically only happens every five to seven years.
A tiny ice umbrella
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As it is our job to find the best, most interesting, and fascinating pictures on the internet, we don’t take it lightly when we say one picture trumps them all. This is just remarkable!
Spotted: an albino deer
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Albino deer lack pigmentation and have a completely white hide and pink eyes, nose, and hooves. Albinism is much rarer and may only be observed in one in 30,000 deer. It might be considered good luck, too, to see one!
A rare lenticular cloud over Mount Fuji
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This type of cloud looks a lot like a UFO. When you see it for the first time you might say to yourself that you’ve never seen anything like that before. To some people, they also look like flying saucers or a stack of pancakes.
This shadow from two different trees in a parking lot.
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At first glance, you might look at this picture and think to yourself “what am I looking at?!” But then you look a little longer and realize there is a second tree with leaves behind the camera reflecting on the building.
The smallest maple leaf maybe ever
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Maple leaves remind us of the fall, sweater weather, and Halloween. Now, we can say with confidence we’ve seen our fair share of maple leaves. But never have we ever seen a maple leaf this small before. So cute!
A rock or a Vietnamese mossy frog?
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Vietnamese mossy frogs look a lot like a clump of moss thanks to their green color, black spots, lumps, and bumps. Cool fact: Vietnamese mossy frogs will fold into a ball when frightened and play dead.
Baby sunflower apart from the parent patch in the back.
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How this patch of sunflowers ended up growing in the tiny crevice of the sidewalk, we don’t know. Well, maybe we can guess that the seeds from the parent patch over there in the back ended up in the dirt.
This geyser right before it blows.
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A geyser is a vent in the ground that will sometimes spout a column of hot water and steam. It’s an amazing phenomenon to witness. Old Faithful is the world’s best-known geyser.
Color gradient moss street art.
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Nature just never ceases to amaze us. And you don’t have to go very far to admire the natural wonders of the world. You could be walking around your city and find a colorful patch of moss in the stone.
Lizard growing another foot on its tail.
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We’ve all heard that lizards lose their tail when frightened or caught off guard. But we’ve never heard of a lizard gowing a whole other foot on its tail!? Man, can nature get any cooler that that?
Fire ants create a floating island of themselves to ride out the Houston flooding.
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Though small, they are mighty in numbers. It turns out ants are remarkably intelligent little creatures given their size. It’s becoming apparent to scientists that small insects like ants are stronger together than they are alone. It seems to be proven here with this ant colony having created a floating island to protect themselves from the flood.
The sheepshead fish has human-like teeth.
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This is when you listen to your parents advice and not judge books by their cover! A Sheepshead fish might look funny but it’s really cool! They use their uniquely strong teeth to break through the hard shells of crabs, oysters, mussels, shrimp and barnacles. Cool, huh?
This flower pot filled with ice looks like an eye.
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Sometimes when you spend enough time in nature you start to really look into your minds eye and discover new things about yourself. And sometimes you find your minds eye quite literally.
This red only rainbow I saw at midnight in Finland.
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Now this picture looks like it has a story attached! So apparently it’s midnight in the photo which really surprised us at first given how light it is. But perhaps that is what also caused the cool red rainbow only phenomenon. Have you ever seen anything like this before?
This twisted driftwood I found on the beach
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Many people find that strolling the beach in search of eye-catching seashells and beautiful driftwood to be a relaxing hobby. The thing is, if you stumble upon this size driftwood, unless you have a monster pick-up truck, that thing is staying at the beach.
A cherry just grew alone in the middle of my tree.
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And then there was one. Okay, what would you do nature edition: if you saw this lonesome cherry on the tree? Would you eat it or leave it there to grow and maybe lead to more cherries blossoming?
This Tree That Was Burnt In A Bushfire Continues To Live On
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Is it just us or does this tree look like a cowboy wearing his trousers up high and leaning to the side with a swagger? What’s that? It is just us? Oh okay, you’re probably right.
Snow Had Just The Right Conditions So That It Rolled Up Like A Carpet.
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Most of us remember being a kid waiting by the phone dancing around the kitchen waiting to get the Snow Day call. And when it did come, boy did it deliver. It looks like this little girl took advantage of her snow day to the max!
By Far The Smallest Frog Possibly Ever Seen (An Average-Sized Fingernail For Scale.
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The world’s smallest known vertebrate is a frog the size of a housefly. At an average of 7.7 millimeters long, the Paedophryne amauensis is a hair smaller than the previous record holder, the Southeast Asian fish species Paedocypris progenetica, whose females measure about 7.9 millimeters. Fascinating facts.
Beautiful Elephant Hawk Moth Found In A Garden In the UK.
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This ain’t your average grandma’s closet moth, folks! Honestly, we never knew moths could be so pretty and something we’d even not mind having around! In fact, if you want to attract this guy and butterflies to your garden, plant nectar-rich borders for them to feed along and climbing Ivy and shrubs for overwintering insects.
This Tibetan Cherry Tree At Park Looks Like Copper.
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Also known as ‘birch bark cherry’ with spectacular bark that looks like its burnished mahogany. The bark peels away in bands with age, which is just super cool. This is a flowering cherry tree, with showy white flowers in small clusters in spring. Basically, it’s the best tree ever. We are passionate Tibetan tree people.
A Single Branch Of An Apple Tree And The Rest Is Normal.
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Darwin taught us all how crazy nature really is. Natural selection pressures, competition, speciation, all that good stuff. And now we see nature at its wildest self just being straight-up wacky.
A Whole Colony Of Fairy Inkcaps Looking Absolutely Mystical.
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Unfortunately, fairies do not live here. But fungus sure does! Common in Britain and Ireland and throughout Europe and North America, the Fairy Inkcap is a unique mushroom, being found also in most parts of Asia and in South America and Australia.
The New Growth On This Fir Tree.
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Just look at that. Look at the new growth on that fir tree right there. That is something, isn’t it? A real natural beauty- none of that fake plastic plants. No, that is all one hundred percent au natural.
Antarctic worm species called Eulagisca Gigantean.
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It’s not every day that you see a weird giant worm with gold bristles! This unusual, 8-inch long marine worm looks like something out of a nightmare, but research suggests it could be crucial to the health of our ecosystems. The giant polynoid worm Eulagisca gigantea is a species of scale worm found in the Southern Ocean near Antarctica.
“My friend traveled to India. She posted a photo this morning with the caption ‘It’s going well.'”
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India can be a little overwhelming and a bit of a culture shock for first-time travelers. It will take you some time to adjust to the frenetic energy of this bewildering place. Although a trip to India might have moments like this spider-infested toilet paper, it also has some of the most remarkable sights unlike anything else in the world.
The river flooded, then froze, then the water receded leaving these hovering ice shelves on the trees.
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We looked at this photo a few times without reading the caption and thought that somehow the snow had created a kind of shelf between the trees. That is until we read the caption and understood that it’s just a frozen lake with a reflection of the trees.
The way the condensation formed on this blackberry plant in the morning.
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Mother Nature, you never cease to amaze us. What a wonderful world we live in, truly a masterpiece everywhere you look. These water droplets are placed so perfectly along the outer edges of the leaf, you’d think it was painted by an artist.
The parrot waxcap mushroom found across Northern Europe.
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No, you didn’t just step inside Alice in Wonderland, you’re just looking at the gifts of Mother Nature herself! This spectacular mushroom comes in varied colors, mainly green, yellow, and blue with a shiny, slimy cap and stem. As with most waxcaps, this mushroom should be left alone to grow and be appreciated for its aesthetic beauty. Definitely don’t try to eat this slimy mushroom!
This cabbage showing its fall colors.
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This cabbage is either showing off its fall-ready colors or it’s a Cabbage Patch Kid’s home. We can’t say we spend too much time with cabbage, but it’s also safe to say we have never seen one like this before!
Black squirrel with a blonde tail.
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This ain’t your neighborhood lawn squirrel! Black squirrels are actually a product of interspecies breeding between the common gray squirrel and the fox squirrel. But don’t get your hopes up of seeing one- they’re not too common in North America.
Left: A Painting From 1892
Right: The Same Spot In 2020
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If there is one thing in this world that is true, it is that life is always changing. Especially in this modern world, 129 years is a long time and a lot of changes can happen in that time. But somehow this tree made it through the changes unscathed by humanity.
This tree grew inside an old silo and finally made it to the top!
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Only true internet-deep-divers know that there is a dedicated corner of the world wide web dedicated to trees growing in and around stuff. Here is a tree that found its way through the darkest of places only to reach the top and feel the sun again.
This bee covered in pollen.
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We can’t say that we’ve ever seen a bee covered in pollen before, but now that we have, we’re really glad it happened. Most bees transport pollen externally, but some bees consume the pollen and carry it in something called their “honey stomach.” Bees also produce a small electrostatic charge, which helps the pollen stick more securely to their bodies. The more you know!
The interconnected pattern on this palm frond.
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Palm trees are characteristic of warm sunny days on a tropical island. But they’re more than just eye-candy! Most palms grow fronds from the crown (or top) of the plant. The fronds are one major identifying device, second only to the type of trunk the plant grows. And did you know that there are over 3,000 palm species?
A tree inside another tree.
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Well, here you have it, folks. Another natural wonder of the world right there in front of our very eyes. Absolutely spectacular. One of a kind. Truly, never seen anything like it.
A rock inside of a rock.
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Nature, stop doing this to us! We cannot take any more of this mind-blowing cool stuff you keep throwing at us. Seriously, a rock inside of a rock? How did that even form? Geologists, tell us how!
This banana is the length of a man’s forearm.
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Well, if you can get the best bang for your buck, you might as well! This banana is clearly no ordinary banana. In fact, we have never in our banana-eating days seen anything quite like it.
These tumbleweeds piled up in front of this person’s house.
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Not gonna lie, we’re used to seeing tumbleweeds just in movies of deserted places. But can you imagine going on vacation for a week and pulling up the driveway to just a pile of tumbleweeds of all things blocking your door?
The way these succulents are growing in the wall.
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Succulents have grown to become maybe the most popular house plant a person can own. That’s because caring for a succulent is easy and cheap and they’re pretty hard to kill.
This bird that looks like Danny Devito.
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Once you see it, you just can’t unsee it. You know him, Danny DeVito the actor, comedian, director, producer, and screenwriter. Well, you should know him at least. He’s Danny DeVito, for crying out loud!
“My grass is an inch lower and got frost. My neighbors did not. “
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If you’ve learned nothing else from this article, let it be this: nature works in mysterious ways. Truly, this picture might not make sense to you or us, but nature knows what it’s doing. It always does.