Weirdest Animals

If you love animals and think the weird-looking ones get all your attention, check this list contains the 15 weirdest animals that actually exist around the globe.

Weirdest Animals: Pangolins

The scaly appearing Pangolins are one of the weirdest looking animals. These primarily nocturnal creatures are covered from head to toe with scales made up of Keratin. This rigid appearance also acts as armor for them. With a sticky tongue that is longer than its body, small conical head, and jaw lacking teeth; Pangolins often look scary. Their scales constitute 20% of their weight. They feed on ants and termites. There are 8 different species of this mammal. But unfortunately, they fall under the category of endangered species, mostly trafficked for their meat and scales.

Weirdest Animals: Naked Mole Rats

These wrinkled rodents live in harsh conditions but that does not affect them. Rather they live eight times longer than other rats. These creatures almost never become prey to cancer. Also, newborns have well-developed brains, indeed making them better than the rest. The average litter size is 28.

Weirdest Animals: Dumbo Octopus

This semi-transparent octopus is often difficult to spot since it resides just slightly above the seafloor. It’s therefore known as the deepest living octopus. Dumbos have one single row of suckers on each arm, but they don’t have ink sacks. They grow up to 8 inches.

Weirdest Animals: Babirusa

Babirusas are wild pigs, weighing up to 100 kg. These are unique, with multi-chambered stomach and deer-like limbs. Hence their name means “Pig-deer” in the Malay language. These are omnivores in nature. What places them among the weirdest-looking animals is their tusk. The four species of Babirusa (males) have long upper and lower canine teeth. The most surprising part is the growth of the upper canines. They grow throughout their lifespan. As they grow, they often rotate and pierce their skull too.

Weirdest Animals: Lamprey

Lamprey, the jawless fish is both weird-looking and terrifying. Not all of them live in the sea; some remain in freshwater throughout their life. Their mouth acts as a suction cup with the piercing teeth that hold the prey. Lamprey lacks bones and has seven gill openings on each side. They regenerate, just like Spiders, Starfish, and Lizards. They have a strange mating system, as they die just after spawning as don’t eat for a long period to make space in their digestive system.

Weirdest Animals: Sunfish

Ocean Sunfish is the heaviest known bony fish in the world. This circled-shaped aquatic animal lacks a swim bladder and tail. But surprisingly, it can still dive deep into the sea. They have extremely weird teeth. Sunfish lay somewhere near 300 million eggs at once. Likewise, the older the females get, the more eggs they produce.

Weirdest Animals: Gobi Jerboa

A member of the rodent family, Gobi Jerboa is known for surviving in the extremely hot desert and their long, big ears help them to remain cool. But apart from every other fascinating characteristic, their Kangaroo-like legs make them look weird. Jerboa can even jump up to a height of 9.8 feet. They have a tail that sometimes exceeds the length of their body. Jerboas are nocturnal animals and have sharp hearing power. An interesting fact is that Jerboa was Britain’s WWII mascot.

Weirdest Animals: Cantor's Giant Softshell Turtle

Cantor's giant softshell turtle lives in freshwater rivers in Asia and spends almost all its life buried in the sand hiding from enemies. It can grow to a length of 2 m (7 ft) and has like most turtles a very powerful bite. Cantor's giant softshell turtle is a so-called softshell turtle and has an unusually flat body and a shell that feels like hard rubber. Unfortunately, since it is easily caught to be eaten or sold, it has become endangered.

Weirdest Animals: Thorny Dragon

The thorny dragon, or thorny devil, is a scary and funny-looking lizard that lives in Australia. The thorny lizard's topside is completely covered in hard spines that make it tough to swallow for predators. It also has a large lump on its neck that it shows to predators to make them believe it's its head. The thorny dragon is, despite its terrifying looks with the scary spines and weird extra head, completely harmless to humans and mostly eats ants and plants.

Weirdest Animals: Glaucus Atlanticus

The most unusual-looking slug in the world is probably the colorful Glaucus Atlantic. It also goes by the names: blue dragon, sea angel, and sea swallow. The blue dragon is a sea slug that lives in many parts of the world's oceans, including outside Europe, South Africa, and eastern Australia. The blue dragon floats upside down just by the surface and is usually just a few centimetres long. In the tips of its many fingers is a poison that it uses to kill its prey.

Weirdest Animals: Leafy Sea Dragon

The leafy sea dragon lives in the ocean outside southern and eastern Australia and is part of the same family (Syngnathidae) as the almost as odd-looking seahorses. However, leafy sea dragons are bigger than most seahorses and look a lot like the mythological dragon. The "leaves" of skin enable it to camouflage itself as a floating patch of seaweed.

Weirdest Animals: Macropinna Microstom

Macropinna microstom lives, among other places, in the deep waters of the Pacific Ocean and was first photographed alive in 2004. The unique thing about Macropinna microstom is that it has a transparent head! The eyes (the green domes in the photo) are placed inside the fluid-filled head and can, for example, be turned straight up as in the photo. When the fish searches for prey, it looks through its own head.

Weirdest Animals: Giant Isopod

Giant isopods are a genus of the world's largest and weirdest woodlice. Giant isopods feed on dead animals and are common on the bottom of deep, cold parts of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans. The largest species of these giant woodlice can grow to 75 cm (30 in) in length and weigh up to 1.7 kg (3.7 lb).

Weirdest Animals: Phasmatidae

Phasmatidae is a family of stick insects, or "walking sticks", that live in warm countries and look like dry twigs. Some of these stick insects have large wings and can fly, but most of them have very small or no wings at all. Their unusual appearance is a natural camouflage that makes it easy for them to hide in trees from enemies.

Weirdest Animals: Narwhal

Narwhals live in the Arctic Ocean and grow to 5 m (16 ft) in length. The unique thing about narwhals are the males' up to 3 m (10 ft) long "spears". The spear is actually one of the narwhal's two teeth, that grows straight forward and forms a helical and pointy fang. Sometimes a narwhal even has two fangs. The spear is used for fencing with other males during mating.