UNUSUAL LOOKING ANIMALS

GLAUCUS ATLANTICUS

The most beautiful though strange looking animal on our list is the

glaucus atlanticus. A small sea slug (beauty comes in unexpected

places), glaucus atlanticus can devour the strong-stinging

Portuguese Man o’ War jellyfish and even store its venom in its

own appendages to protect against predators (including humans

who touch it!). It floats upside down on the ocean’s surface,

using its colours to blend in with the blue of the sea and silver

of the surface. The blue may even help reflect away harmful UV rays.

BERGAMASCO SHEPHERD

A herding dog with origins in the Italian Alps north of Milan, the

Bergamasco Shepherd is one of the strangest looking dog breeds

out there. This dog, an expert sheep and cattle herder, is most

known for its bizarre fur which is thick and plentiful and can

often times look like dreadlocks.

LEAF-TAILED GECKO

Uroplatus, also known as the leaf-tailed gecko, inhabits forests on

Madagascar. It’s no surprise to find a gecko adept at camouflage,

but the leaf-tailed gecko really hits it out of the park. Some have

developed a flat flap of skin, the dermal flap, running from head to

tail which, when lying against the tree bark, scatters shadows and

makes them practically invisible.

SHOEBILL

A huge, stork-like bird, the shoebill inhabits swampy areas in

Eastern Africa’s tropical regions. Its most noticeable feature

is its large bill which looks like a shoe. The bill has sharp edges

which the shoebill can use to decapitate its prey and a nail-like

point at the end for tearing. This bird is so strange that

scientists aren’t entirely sure what other birds it is

related to genetically.

FRILLED SHARK

The frilled shark’s primitive features sometimes lead marine

biologists to call it a living fossil. Resembling an enormous and

terrifying sea serpent, the frilled shark is a rarely-seen sea

dweller which likely grasps its prey by crimping its body and

leaping forward to strike like a snake. That’s not even the

worst part. The frilled shark’s teeth are plentiful: 300 choppers,

each with five needle-like protrusions which can pierce the

flesh of prey with ease.

BABIRUSA

Indonesia’s “pig deer”, the babirusa is a genus of pig found on the

islands of Sula, Buru, Sulawesi, and Togian. Notable is the

babirusa’s enormous upper canines. If this strange animal

doesn’t grind its tusks, they’ll grow to the point where

they pierce its own skull.

AYE-AYE

Its real name, the aye-aye doesn’t get a lot of notoriety even

though it’s the world’s largest nocturnal primate (what a title, huh?).

A lemur, the aye-aye looks like an alien straight out of Hollywood.

Especially strange is how it gathers food – the aye-aye taps on

trees to find grubs, gnaws a hole in the tree, then sticks its

slender middle finger in to pull out the grub. This strange

animal is found throughout Madagascar but is endangered.

OCEAN SUNFISH

The heaviest bony fish in the world, the ocean sunfish (or mola mola)

is a massive fish which looks more like a fish head and an

attached, deformed tail. Weighing up to 2,200 pounds (1,000 kg),

a female sunfish can produce more eggs than any other

vertebrate – up to 300,000,000 at a time. That’s 300 million eggs.

The mola mola is considered a delicacy in Japan, Korea, and

Taiwan, and definitely deserves a place on our list as one of the

most bizarre looking animals on Earth.