“I’m not weird,” said the Dismalite glowworm to the alligator snapping turtle. “You’re weird.”

“You think I’m weird?” the turtle replied, its gaping jaws flailed open in protest. “Just because I look like something out of Jurassic Park and use my tongue as a fishing lure?

“Clearly, you’ve never met this little cute and cuddly songbird that likes to kill animals and hang them up on barbed wire fences. Now that’s weird.”

Weird is a pretty relative term. And I imagine even Alabama’s weirdest animals wouldn’t be able to agree on which ones qualify.

Admittedly, it’s an extremely unscientific way to describe an animal. But that’s part of what makes it fun.

Late last year, AL.com asked for nominations for Alabama’s “weirdest” animals from a wide range of animal experts, researchers and the general public. We intentionally did not specify beyond “weird.” We wanted to see what the people who study wildlife for a living, and the ones who just encounter these animals over the course of their everyday lives, thought were the strangest, most surprising, unique or just confusing species currently living in our state.

The people didn’t disappoint. We got dozens of suggestions, six of which we’ve profiled in this series. We could have easily done another 12, and maybe we will someday. There are dozens of weird and endangered mussels, amphibians, birds and insects that didn’t make the cut this time around.

One of the perks of living in a state as biodiverse as Alabama is that you have literally thousands of species to choose from in a list like this. But these six stuck out to us just a bit above the others.

There’s the aforementioned glowworm that can light up the walls of Dismals Canyon in swarms that are only seen in Alabama and New Zealand.

And, of course, the serial killer bird that loves to string up animals on barbed wire fences to save them for later.

There’s also the amphiuma, a three-foot-long salamander that can hunt in near total darkness by sensing the electrical impulses of its prey.

And the rainbow snake, with its striking colors that are hardly ever seen because the snake lives almost entirely underwater hunting eels.

We even found room for the ubiquitous red fire ant, which can dig tunnels 20 feet deep in the ground, make rafts to float away from rising flood waters, and flies 300-500 feet in the air to reproduce before air dropping into a new area to colonize.

Those are some pretty weird, pretty different animals we picked.

So now we ask you: Did we get it right? Which animals that got left off this list should be on the next one?

You can email me at [email protected] with your suggestions, and maybe we’ll see more weird animal content on AL.com.