Weird Animals

Learn about some of the world’s weirdest animals. Some are pretty, some are ugly, but all of them are very, very strange.

The Sloth – A Weird and Wonderful Animal

October 16, 2010

The sloth is the only animal I know of that was named after one of the seven deadly sins. The Sloth is slow. He hangs upside down on tree branches. He has so much algae growing on his fur that he looks green. His claws are so long and curved that walking on the ground [...]

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Platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) – A Weird and Endangered Animal

October 16, 2010

Meet the Platypus The platypus is such an unusual creature that European naturalists thought it was a hoax when the first dried skin was sent to England from the newly explored continent of Australia by Governor John Hunter in 1799. Surely a clever taxidermist had sewn the beak of a duck to the body of [...]

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Hooded Seal (Cystophora cristata), a Weird Animal

October 16, 2010

The female Hooded Seal looks like a normal spotted seal, but the adult males are just plain weird. This large marine mammal carries an inflatable beach ball attached to his head. This pouch is an enlargement of the nasal cavity and hangs down between his eyes and down over his upper lip when deflated. To [...]

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The Echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus) – A Weird and Wonderful Animal

October 16, 2010

New: Make a paper mache echidna. Click the image for step-by-step instructions! Echidnas are Monotremes, a type of animal that has been on earth since the time of the dinosaurs. photo courtesy of Dr. Lloyd Glenn Ingles, California Academy of Sciences. The oldest known monotreme fossils are over 120 million years old, making this the [...]

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Weird and Endangered Animals from Around the World

October 16, 2010

I know this is supposed to be a site with online drawing lessons, but these weird and wonderful animals were “left over” from an old site that doesn’t exist any more. I couldn’t bear to lock them away in the closet, so here they are. I hope you enjoy learning about these strange and bizarre [...]

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The Aye-Aye – A Weird and Endangered Animal

October 16, 2010

Meet the Aye-Aye (Daubentoniamadagascariensis) If you shaved an aye-aye and stood him on his hind feet, he would look very much like “Gollum,” the J. R. R. Tolkien character from Lord of the Rings. This strange little creature from Madagascar has amazingly long fingers on his hands (yes, he’s a primate), and huge eyes for hunting his food [...]

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