Thanks for your generosity, Melhelix!

As for your request, don't you feel the need to re-playing this one, each time you see an image from it? ;)

Please, count me in for maycett, if I may.

In and +1

Did you know in Venezuela there's a type of centipede so big, it can hunt and eat bats and mice ?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UROVfmY3NTA

I'll give this a shot, thank you!

I really enjoy Civilization V but most 4x games are fun and interesting to me. =)

Thank you for your giveaway, Melhelix! +1

Might because of the first impression in playing this genre of games, my favourite 4x game for me is Civilization II.

Watching Octonauts with my kids and I saw a squid with elbows. Creepy!

Oh yes I can't believe it! I've been waiting for a giveaway like this since I joined GOG!! Thank you so much!

A weird animal? Even if it doesn't really exist but is funny to read about?

Haggis!!

I'm a good looking fella!

Look at my hair! I'm so STYLISH!

Thanks for the opportunity! I'd love Minecraft!

Cheers!

I already own Minecraft (although I do have a family member who'd appreciate a gift code) and my entry technically isn't about an animal so whether or not you include me in the contest is up to you. But frankly this is creepy and awesome enough to at least deserve an honourable mention.

Ladies and GOGers, I give you... Ophiocordyceps unilateralis

Ophiocordyceps unilateralis is a parasitoidal fungus that infects ants such as Camponotus leonardi and alters their behavior. The ant falls from the tree where it normally lives, climbs on the stem of a plant, clamps its mandibles on a leaf and dies there, while the fungus consumes its tissues and grows outside it, releasing its spores. The infected ants are popularly known as zombie ants. This is a prime example of a parasitoid that alters the behavior of its host in order to ensure its own reproduction. Possessed ants march to their death and the fungus lives inside the exoskeleton.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophiocordyceps_unilateralis

Yes, 4x games are indeed awesome. Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is the awesomest of them all...

Thank you!

I'm in!

Here's a weird animal: the Tasmanian Devil (yes, they're real). It's so weird, its first act of retaliation against an aggressor is to <i>yawn at it</i>.

Here's some screenshots I found for Endless Space, a fantastic, gorgeous Master of Orion-like 4x strategy game which, thanks to the free weekend they had, is something I so want to get someday!

[PHOTO 1]

[PHOTO 2]

[PHOTO 3]

I don't play online games so not in. But +1 :)

Trilobites have always been pretty funky.

(It classifies as an animal, even if it is extinct!)

EDIT: I can't get the image attachment to work. :(

EDIT DEUX: THis way then: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Trilobite_Ordovicien_8127.jpg

My favorite 4x game is the original Master of Orion. Its secret and beauty which has so far escaped every 4x developer trying to emulate it, including its own makers in the case of Master of Orion 2, is really just the simpleness of it all.

Master of Orion is strangely addictive and engaging because the gameplay is so streamlined and yet the end result still is that you rule a sprawling empire that feels like your own, design new starships and build fleets that are exactly how you vision them within given constraints, and act on the galactic arena where everything feels epic in scale because the game is decidedly about macromanagement and doesn't concern the player with details and frivolous decisions. Conversely, in Master of Orion 2 I feel more like an overburdened mayor for whom every planet gained is more work and every planet lost is a sting in the heart because of the time wasted micromanaging them. Personally I prefer assuming the role of an emperor who thinks little of a single star system's fate besides its current or future exploitability.

Master of Orion's atmosphere is built partly with the very simple but oft-overlooked method of showing special things and announcements wholly within their own screens with their own graphics instead of sterile windows on top of some main map view. I became aware of this effect when I started playing UFO: Enemy Unknown (1994) and wondered why such a conceptually simple game felt so atmospheric and personal right from the start, even outside combat, and noticed that it was making heavy use of full-screen reports with graphics and flavor text in them, something that many later strategy games lack.

Thanks and +1 for the giveaway! I'll give it a go. My favorite 4x is an old arcade game called Ninja Baseball Bat Man because, well, because it's just an incredibly strange and fun experience. I still wonder what drugs were behind its creation. ;)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nixfDLTB75c

Giant Weta it's a gigantic cricket-like insect
http://gizmodo.com/5864195/the-worlds-biggest-insect-is-so-freaking-huge-it-can-eat-a-carrot

You only find this sucker on Little Barrier Island in New Zealand, oh and its the world's biggest insect