[Misc] World's Hardest Creature XII - Nominations

[jimhigham]

We're back and this time it's by public demand.

Good morning. I'm Chris Packham and it's my job... no, honour to host this year's World's Hardest Creature tournament. Over the coming weeks we are going to analyse, dissect, discuss, dispute and debate the roughest, toughest, meanest, ballsiest beasts that Planet Earth has to offer. The Hippo reigned supreme in 2018, as it seemingly strolled to the title, taking down the Honey Badger in a final seen by some as disappointingly routine. Can it repeat the trick in 2019 or will the chastened chasing pack come back with renewed vigour?

I'm taking time off from my usual watch of the very best of British wildlife (an angry badger) to fling open the doors, cut the ribbon and declare WHC XII officially OPEN! Creatures? Start your engines!

The annual WHC barney has become an important part of the NSC landscape and I know that some of you have been positively ravenous for the 2019 tournament. Rest easy. Sit back. Relax. Finally it is here. And now that it is I need all of you to step up, speak out, take a side and state your case.

Nominations are now open and you know the rules. With the exception of our defending champion, nobody gets a bye in WHC. In order to go into the hat a creature must be both nominated and seconded so don't be shy. Get your Wikipedias out, YouTube yourself to a standstill, check out David Attenborough's back catalogue and get nominating. Nothing and nobody is too obscure. If it's hard, it's hard. If you feel the need to define the very essence of hard then fill your boots.

It's Friday and there's a weekend around the corner, which means a match day and a rather important one at that. Fear not! You can all indulge your football hobby on Saturday safe in the knowledge that angry animals will be ready and waiting for you on the other side. Nominations will remain open until 23:59 on Thursday 7th March. That gives you all one whole week to argue amongst yourselves. Have fun.

And with that, I hand the baton to you all. Don't let me down. See you all for the group stages.

Go...

 

[Pevenseagull]

...

IT'S ON

TARDIGRADE

(I'll get species.specific if you require)

 

[Knocky's Nose]

Out of pure loyalty to our BHAFC mascot, the lovable feathered thieving shit machines, with their scant regard to all forms of danger being shown more and more as the years go by - I will push forward (with a swing of my right foot)....

....the Seagull.



" Raaaaarrrrgggccchhh Euuuch Euuch Euuuch Uyoooookh "

*roughly translates as "bring it on..."

 

[Juan Albion]

Geogemma barossii, a unicellular beastie that lingers on hydrothermal vents on the sea floor in temperatures of 121°C (250°F).

 

[Mental Lental]

He's back and up for it again as always.....



HONEY BADGER = "LET'S BE AVIN' YER!"

 

[mr sheen]

Wolverine

 

[Chicken Run]

Toy Poodle

 

[Hillian1]

Toy Poodle

Seconded

 

[m20gull]

He's back and up for it again as always.....

View attachment 105173

HONEY BADGER = "LET'S BE AVIN' YER!"

Seconded. Let the shenanigans begin.

Now, where did I put those login details?

 

[Nobby]

Strain 121 Nominated

 

[Chicken Run]

Seconded

[emoji123][emoji106][emoji102]

Let’s get the magnificent NSC PR team behind this years underdog #gopoodle.

 

[mjking73]

Deathstalker scorpion:
Considered the “world’s most lethal scorpion,” the deathstalker more than earns its name. Not only is its poison dangerous for adults and deadly for children and older people, but it moves startlingly fast, too—at about 1.3 metres per second. Watch out for these small but stealthy creatures when in Northern and East Africa (and, if somehow you do run into them in the United States, be warned: the anti-venom to combat their poison has yet to be approved by the FDA).

 

[Barham's tash]

Deathstalker scorpion:
Considered the “world’s most lethal scorpion,” the deathstalker more than earns its name. Not only is its poison dangerous for adults and deadly for children and older people, but it moves startlingly fast, too—at about 1.3 metres per second. Watch out for these small but stealthy creatures when in Northern and East Africa (and, if somehow you do run into them in the United States, be warned: the anti-venom to combat their poison has yet to be approved by the FDA).

Beaten to the punch. Clearly seconded


The Death Stalker scorpion.

Indigenous to Northern and East Africa these little ****ers can move at 1.3m per second [they’re typically only 6cm long themselves] and their venom is yet to have an approved anti-venom so potent is it.

Cause of death post sting is often recorded as pulmonary oedema - think drowning out of water.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Baldseagull]

It's the Honey Badger, always has been, always will be.

 

[McTavish]

I posted this in the coming soon(ish) thread but I think that Simon Barnes presents the credentials of the STOAT (and a sly dig at the HB) far better than I could:


Britain’s stoat, the world featherweight champion predator

The world’s top predator lives in my garden. I reached that conclusion after a stunning encounter during the morning chores. It often happens that country life involves country death, a matter you soon learn to view without gloating or weeping: and so I was startled, if not exactly surprised, by a piercing scream as I worked among the feed bins.

I went out to investigate — and it was as I thought, but even more dramatic. A lithe stoat, perhaps 3in high at his slender shoulder, had brought down a fully grown rabbit and was in the process of killing it by severing the spinal cord. The rabbit was a good 10 times his size: like human v rhinoceros.

The stoat saw me and vanished like the extinguishing of a candle flame. The rabbit did not: his travelling days were done. I retreated, but a little later I had to pass that way again, and the rabbit had gone: dragged into cover by this stoat of impossible strength.

Boxing people like to talk about who is “pound for pound” the best fighter, as if weight categories could be set aside. And it occurred to me that the stoat is perhaps pound for pound the world’s most effective predator. Now this, like the boxing discussion, is a pub argument that need never end: but it’s instructive all the same.

Let’s set aside the predators who work in packs and prides: wild dogs have a success rate as high as 90%, but I’m looking for animals that strike alone. A tiger can bring down a fully grown gaur, the Asian wild cattle that are sometimes 7ft high at the shoulder, but to compete with a stoat, the tiger would have to kill elephants on a routine basis.

Other contenders include the Tasmanian devil, a marsupial predator that seems to have the head of a much larger animal on its shoulders. No one who loves Africa can fail to put up the claims of the honey badger: largely because honey badgers, being slow moving, will confront rather than flee. They have a reputation for launching themselves at the crotch of humans who disturb them.

Today, though, I’m rooting for the stoat. With apricot fur and teddy-bear ears, they don’t look at first glance like creatures of perfect ferocity: but they are perhaps the finest ambush predators on the planet. There are monsters at the bottom of my garden.

GO STOAT - a worthy British Champion for these troubled times!

 

[MattBackHome]

Deathstalker scorpion:
Considered the “world’s most lethal scorpion,” the deathstalker more than earns its name. Not only is its poison dangerous for adults and deadly for children and older people, but it moves startlingly fast, too—at about 1.3 metres per second. Watch out for these small but stealthy creatures when in Northern and East Africa (and, if somehow you do run into them in the United States, be warned: the anti-venom to combat their poison has yet to be approved by the FDA).

Nominated 4 times in WHC history.

Beaten in the first round in 07, 09, 13 & 15 and has amassed a total of 17 votes (making it the 58th hardest animal of all time). It deserves better IMO.

 

[MattBackHome]

I posted this in the coming soon(ish) thread but I think that Simon Barnes presents the credentials of the STOAT (and a sly dig at the HB) far better than I could:


Britain’s stoat, the world featherweight champion predator

The world’s top predator lives in my garden. I reached that conclusion after a stunning encounter during the morning chores. It often happens that country life involves country death, a matter you soon learn to view without gloating or weeping: and so I was startled, if not exactly surprised, by a piercing scream as I worked among the feed bins.

I went out to investigate — and it was as I thought, but even more dramatic. A lithe stoat, perhaps 3in high at his slender shoulder, had brought down a fully grown rabbit and was in the process of killing it by severing the spinal cord. The rabbit was a good 10 times his size: like human v rhinoceros.

The stoat saw me and vanished like the extinguishing of a candle flame. The rabbit did not: his travelling days were done. I retreated, but a little later I had to pass that way again, and the rabbit had gone: dragged into cover by this stoat of impossible strength.

Boxing people like to talk about who is “pound for pound” the best fighter, as if weight categories could be set aside. And it occurred to me that the stoat is perhaps pound for pound the world’s most effective predator. Now this, like the boxing discussion, is a pub argument that need never end: but it’s instructive all the same.

Let’s set aside the predators who work in packs and prides: wild dogs have a success rate as high as 90%, but I’m looking for animals that strike alone. A tiger can bring down a fully grown gaur, the Asian wild cattle that are sometimes 7ft high at the shoulder, but to compete with a stoat, the tiger would have to kill elephants on a routine basis.

Other contenders include the Tasmanian devil, a marsupial predator that seems to have the head of a much larger animal on its shoulders. No one who loves Africa can fail to put up the claims of the honey badger: largely because honey badgers, being slow moving, will confront rather than flee. They have a reputation for launching themselves at the crotch of humans who disturb them.

Today, though, I’m rooting for the stoat. With apricot fur and teddy-bear ears, they don’t look at first glance like creatures of perfect ferocity: but they are perhaps the finest ambush predators on the planet. There are monsters at the bottom of my garden.

GO STOAT - a worthy British Champion for these troubled times!
View attachment 105175

Cracking nomination and a debut.

We've had weasels, cats, mongEESE and shrews; but never a stoat.

Obviously seconded

 

[Taybha]

I see that Stoat and raise you with The Great White Bunny

 

[Munkfish]

AND IT'S LIVE. Team Mouse for me, Year of the Mouse.

 

[Brighthelmstone]

Dung Beatle, strongest animal on the planet

Male Onthophagus taurus beetles can pull 1,141 times their own body weight: the equivalent of an average person pulling six double-decker buses full of people