6 Animals Who Live Inside A Horror Movie Every Day

So you've spent a lifetime murdering, pillaging, using the phrase "on fleek" in casual conversation, and/or otherwise being an unrepentant dickboil to your fellow man. And should it turn out that some Eastern religions were right all along, after you die, you're going to spend the next life as a lowly beast. You know, in order to pay the celestial piper and burn off all the bad karma. Sounds reasonable enough, but what do you suppose happens if you're really a shitheel? I mean, what kind of animal would the most egregiously epic, Boko-Haram-meets-Martin Shkreli-level malefactors of the first order inhabit? Well, they probably get to spend some quality time skulking around in the paws/hooves/suckers of ...

#6. A Pig That Impales Itself With Its Own Tusks

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While those of certain religious persuasions would take less kindly to the situation than others, returning to the earthly realm as a pig would be something that few would consider a promotion. Sure, their reputation as an inherently filthy animal is largely undeserved, but there's a reason there's no equivalent to a Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show for hogs (not counting the remote parts of Georgia where teens still hang posters of Ned Beatty on their walls as boner fuel). Even if you're theprettiest pig on the planet, you're still not much of a treat for the eyes until you've been rendered down into sizzling breakfast components. And while one might assume that warthogs boast the most revolting visage among those of the porcine persuasion, it turns out they have some serious competition in the form of something called the babirusa (Babyrousa celebensis).

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Most animals can at least lick themselves without the risk of violent castration.

The odious ungulate above hails from the island of Sulawesi, and is arguably the world's most heinous-looking swine. At first glance, you might not notice the off-putting way their corpulent torso is perched on top of those dainty little legs. Mostly because of that face (the one that looks like they just finished devouring an eight-point buck and had trouble swallowing the business end). You'd think the atrociously tuskified mugs on these pork monstrosities would make them great at goring one another (you know, for the right to mate with their equally atrocious ladyhogs.) But it turns out the things are actually loose in their sockets and quite brittle, making the one impressive thing about these animals merely an exercise in pointlessness. The locals pay tribute to these beasts by making "demonic masks" in their honor, none of which do much justice to the overall loathsomeness of the real thing.

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For some reason, I just had a strong desire to convert to Judaism.

But more than looks make the babirusa such a suitable candidate for Gestapo / Westboro Baptist reincarnations. What truly makes their life a suitably gruesome punishment for the wicked is the fact that, if not kept in check, those unruly tusks of theirs can sometimes grow upwards and inwards to the point where they pierce right through their own skulls and into their brains.

Via scienceblogs.com

Via scienceblogs.com
The conservationists pretty much gave up at this point.

So to sum things up, we have a hideously grimy organism whose scariest-looking feature doesn't do fuck-all in terms of actual offense or defense, but is somehow just strong enough for it to give itself a DIY lobotomy. Just in case you're looking for a checkmate to one of those intelligent design arguments in the near future.

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Although you'd be hard-pressed to find a better subject for an anti-sodomy poster campaign.

#5. A Worm That Feasts On Snail Cock

Via researchgate.net

Well, shit. It turns out fate has decided you'll be spending the next life as a worm. Not even one of the cool ones that terrorize Scotland, but a teeny, bullshit worm that makes its living as a parasite. But at least parasites don't have to work very hard, right? Maybe you could just ride this thing out and wait for the next roll of the astral dice. And try to forget how you'll be spending the interimgorging yourself on gastropod gonads.

The victim in this scenario, the common whelk, is a type of sea snail that lives in a widespread area across the Northern Atlantic. They're fairly innocuous little guys, and generally mind their own business as they slurp hither and thither off the European coasts. They're actually pretty cute, as mollusks go.

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Seen here in happier, dick-having times.

They reportedly thrive in cold temperatures, but probably wouldn't mind a bit of shrinkage here and there just to lower their genitalia profile. And that's because their baby-making parts are under constant threat of annihilation by an insidious type of trematode/flatworm, also known as a fluke. But there are no happy accidents for the snails where this type of fluke is concerned, because it's imperative to these worms' life mission to spend part of their growth cycle decimating snail junk in a purposeful act of aggressive castration.

If you have the stomach for it, the crime scene photos below are worth about 1,000 synonyms for "terrible."

Via scienceblogs.com
The "P" in the top image marks the snail's penis. The "D" in the lower one I think refers to how the snail is praying for death.

If you're thinking that the snails are the ones getting the short end of the stick here (ha!), well, believe it or not, there's an upside to having their manhood gnawed away like a rottweiler with apizzle stick. Oddly enough, castration winds up giving the snails a longer lifespan, and can sometimes even cause gigantism. Which is probably a pretty cool thing for something as boring as a snail.

No, the indication you're obviously atoning for something you did in a past life is when you come back as the worm. Because after spending some quality time nibbling on snail cock, the next step in the parasitic process is to get eaten by a fish, and then by a bird. Followed by getting pooped back into the sea by said bird, then being ironically gulped down by something called a cockle, which in turn gets eaten by a whelk. And the cycle of penile violence begins anew.

University of Otago
It's not hard to imagine Caligula coming back as the Marquis de Sade's fleshlight, or vice versa.

#4. A Mongoose That Likes It "Family Style"

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For humans, incest is the kind of activity that makes characters in Greek tragedies claw their own eyes out, and thankfully isn't very popular, unless you count the times the cable goes out at certain Kentucky trailer parks. Beasts of the wild are bound by no such social stigma, however, and tend to be more open-minded about the old inter-familial rumpty. And while one might expect this sort of behavior from a lowly bug or maybe a godless reptile, mammals do it plenty as well. And the thebanded mongoose from Uganda apparently likes it taboo-style more than any other hotblooded varmint around.

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Great. Now I can't listen to Paul Simon anymore without getting creeped out.

So while you'd think returning to the mortal plane as a mongoose might sound pretty awesome, what with all the cobra dueling and Rikki Tikki Tavi street cred, in actuality, it would simply be a fitting punishment for spending the previous lifetime earning the title "motherfucker." Heck, even their scientific name (Mungos mungo) sounds like the plural for some sort of unspeakable sex act. Science doesn't know exactly why the banded mongoose is such a fan of extreme kink, but researchers suspect it has something to do with their "close-knit living arrangements." Which is kind of pathetic in its own right.

BBC
"Well, we always told him he should move out when he turned 18. But that's the age of consent around here too, so things got confusing."

Actually, it's the father/daughter scenarios that were observed with the most frequency by wincing researchers. Not to suggest that these unscrupulous sex weasels wouldn't be up for some mother-on-son action -- it's just that the females tend to die off before they get a chance to defile themselves in full view of every mortified gazelle and hyena on the Savannah. And from there, it's not much of a stretch to assume that they probably have huge, writhing fur-orgies before every nightly Waltons-style family roll call. But before we get all high and mighty about judging banded mon ... geese? ... on their moral repugnance, could it be that all this sordid behavior is merely part of some ingenious survival strategy? I mean, surely there have to be at least a few predators who'd have second thoughts about putting one of these nasty bastards in their mouths.

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One of the only known animals which, when threatened, will instinctively start giving one another an Alabama Hot Pocket.