Alien-looking Life on Earth?

Every so often I come across news articles featuring discoveries of strange animals such as the Lamprey,  Vampire Squid, or these odd-looking insects. I love learning about especially different animals, but there is usually a certain word used to describe them that bothers me. That word is "alien."

As far as I know, the only known physical life forms in the entire universe are found on this little blue marble in space called Earth. So why is it then that when uncommonly seen and sometimes very unusual-looking life on earth is discovered or pulled up from great depths of the sea, they are often referred to as, "alien-like" or alien-looking"? Have you ever stopped to think about that? What is "alien-like" or alien-looking" when there are no actual aliens to compare these creatures to? The most horrid, nightmarish example of a deep sea fish and the cutest, most cuddly golden labrador retriever puppy have at least one very important thing in common. They both live on earth. Therefore, no matter how normal or weird-looking the life we find here on earth, it is all earth-life and looks as earth-lifelike as any other earth-life that has ever been found or observed. Life on our planet is the only life we know about.

So the next time you see a headline proclaiming some odd creature to be "alien-like", just smile and say to yourself, "you mean earth-lifelike".

Just something to think about.