Scientists just discovered these 10 bizarre and beautiful animal species that show what it takes to survive on Earth against the odds

Ancoracysta twista was discovered in an aquarium in San Diego, California, USA. It’s a new single-celled protist that has challenged scientists to determine its nearest relatives.

A Dinizia jueirana-facao tree weighs an estimated 62 tons (56,000 kg). The tree species is limited — there are only 25 known individuals, about half of which are in a protected area, making it critically endangered.

Epimeria quasimodo is one of 26 new species of amphipods of the genus Epimeria from the Southern Ocean. It is named for Quasimodo the hunchback in reference to its shape.

Nymphister kronaueri is a beetle that lives exclusively among one species of army ant, Eciton mexicanum. The beetle’s body is the precise size, shape, and color of a worker ant’s abdomen. The beetle uses its mouth-parts to grab the skinny portion of the host abdomen and hang on, letting the ant do the walking.

When the nomadic ant colonies stop for a few weeks to make raids, the beetles move about, but they reattach before the ants move on.

Pongo tapanuliensis is the most imperiled great ape in the world. Only an estimated 800 individuals exist in its fragmented habitat in Sumatra. Here we see an adult male Tapanuli orangutan named Togos.

Pseudoliparis swirei is a small, tadpole-like fish measuring a little over 4 inches in length (112 mm). It appears to be the top predator in its community at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

Sciaphila sugimotoi is just under 4 inches in height (10 cm), and produces small blossoms in September and October.

Thiolava veneris was the first colonizer after a 2011 eruption of the underwater Tagoro volcano off the coast of the Canary Islands. Scientists discovered the bacteria three years after the eruption — it formed a half-acre sized white mat around the volcanic cone.

Scientists from the University of New South Wales recovered fossils in Australia's Riversleigh World Heritage Area that proved to be a previously unknown marsupial lion. They determined that Wakaleo schouteni roamed the open forest habitat in northwestern Queensland in the late Oligocene, which ended about 23 million years ago.

Xuedytes bellus is less than half an inch in length (about 9 mm). It has a dramatically elongated head and prothorax (the body segment immediately behind the head to which the first pair of legs attach). It was discovered in a cave in Southern China.