25 most unusual animals in the world! (25 photos + description)

The family of these cute, charming, and sometimes cheeky animals is very, very extensive. Due to their omnivorous nature and ability to quickly adapt to almost any climatic conditions, raccoons have been successfully introduced on all continents of our planet and have become many independent subspecies.

So, here are how many species of raccoons there are (main branches):

• Raccoons
• Raccoon-eating raccoons
• Cozumel raccoons

The last species of raccoons is the smallest. These animals live only in Mexico. They have very fluffy fur and a luxurious striped tail. The Cozumel raccoon lives a solitary life ; this animal is not domesticated, although all types of raccoons are capable of living next to humans.

Crayfish inhabit vast areas of South, Central and North America. This species of raccoon received its nickname for its predilection for crustaceans. Crayfish eaters love crabs, lobsters and all kinds of shellfish. Raccoon-eating raccoons are often domesticated. They are used to hunt small rodents and other agricultural pests.

The striped raccoon is the most numerous species of raccoon. The striper can be found in both Americas, and in Europe, and in Asia, and in Africa, and even in Australia. This animal is called the American raccoon, since initially, this predator lived only in North America, from where at the beginning of the 20th century it was artificially introduced into the USSR, and then into many European countries. In Germany, raccoons were bred with the blessing of Goering (an important figure of the Third Reich).

Raccoons are highly domesticated. This subspecies of raccoon is prized for its predilection for eating rodents and reptiles. Gargles are good at clearing the area of ​​poisonous snakes and dangerous reptiles.

This is how many species of raccoons are found in nature.

Position of raccoons in the hierarchy of mammalian predators

Raccoons are a very ancient species of predators. The very first traces of raccoons were found on the territory of modern Europe, from where this animal came to North America, when Eurasia and America were another continent (before the breakup of the lithospheric plates). Those raccoons that remained in Europe were successfully eliminated by wyverns. And the North American family has survived to this day almost unchanged.

Raccoons are a cross between martens and bears. All three species of predators share a common genetic code. Also, olingo, kinkajou and nosuhi are close to raccoons.

Related material: Is it possible to tame a raccoon?

In the past, while studying the species of raccoons, the list of animals with striped colors was replenished with koalas. But, as modern research into the genetic code has shown, koalas are a separate species of animal.

The closest relatives of raccoons are kakimitsli. These animals have a body structure similar to raccoons and a striped tail. Kakomitsli is known as the "half-puma". In part, this animal resembles a cat, only with a long striped tail. Cougars are half nocturnal and are a real threat to small rodents. Many large farms specifically lure this animal closer to their lands so that they destroy the population of small rodents.

Sometimes nature likes to joke and create animals that are very similar to each other. Let's take the raccoon for example. Everyone knows what the animal looks like, at least from our cartoon about a smile. But are you sure that you won’t confuse a raccoon with anyone else? Now we will check it!

Signs about mustachios and stripes

By nature, this is a very sweet and affectionate animal. They are ready to come into contact with children, they are sociable and emotional. Pets are balanced, well-mannered and intelligent in behavior. He can get along well with other pets.

• The Bengal breed is the result of the work of experienced breeders. His ancestor was a wild leopard cat. The modern Bengal differs from other cats in its incredibly beautiful coloring. They are born brindle (classically marbled) or spotted because their genotype contains the T-genes responsible for the tabby color. Marble patterns are less common; these cats are especially prized by lovers of this breed. The main color of the fur of these animals is golden, smoky, white and black.
• One of the main omens associated with the patterns on a cat's body is that an encounter with a tabby cat is about to change. You can learn about the nature of the changes by carefully looking at the frequency and brightness of the stripes and, above all, their color:

Red stripes mean that there is only the appearance of change ahead of you, and all the events associated with them will lead to nothing.

On the other hand, black bars are cause for concern. You may not be going in the best direction.

In addition to the color of the stripes, it is worth paying attention to the color of the tail - if it is white, then it is a good sign, and you can safely make a wish and go to your destination.

Little panda

The red panda lives in forests on the eastern slopes of the Himalayas and the nearby mountains of Western China. The animal is small, with a tail about a meter long, the fur is thick and fluffy, which is why the red panda seems larger than its true size. Her outfit is very colorful.

During the day it sleeps in a hollow or in the fork of a tree; at dusk it awakens, waddling, looking for acorns, roots, lichens and, most importantly, bamboo shoots, juicy and young. With every, even fleeting, alarm, it takes refuge in the trees. And if the path to retreat is cut off, it defends itself desperately, fighting back with paws with sharp semi-retractable claws. The defense methods are similar to those of a bear, but the claws are more likely to be cat-like. Red pandas often live in pairs or families, never in packs. Their cry is loud, some kind of bird screeching.

Apart from two pandas, there are no other raccoons in the Old World. But in America there are 16 species. Raccoons are plantigrade, like bears, some are semi-plantigrade, their claws are semi-retractable or non-retractable. In some ways they resemble small bears, but in some ways they also resemble martens, although in general they are animals of a special family.

Appearance

These are slender animals, comparable in size to cats. The body length is from 38 to 45 cm, and the black and white striped tail ranges from 55 to 62 cm, weighs more than 5 kg. On the back, the fur is gray, sometimes pinkish-brown, the limbs are gray, the head and neck are dark. gray. The belly and inside of the paws are white, the muzzle is white with dark triangular spots around the eyes and a black nose. The tail has 13 black and white stripes. The long tail serves ring-tailed lemurs for signals between relatives, as a distributor of odors, and also for maintaining balance when climbing and jumping. The weight of ring-tailed lemurs can reach 3.5 kg, with a tail of more than 1.5 kg.

Raccoon

The most famous of the raccoons (especially to those who often visit stores selling fur coats) is the striper, or washer, as furriers and Germans call it. They nicknamed him the gargle for his strange habit - to “wash” all his food and various inedible objects in water, when it is nearby.

He rinses, rubs, lowers, and again catches with his front paws everything he wants to eat, so carefully and for a long time that you can’t call it a random whim. But what biological meaning this has is unclear. Some raccoons in captivity even wash their newborn cubs, and so senselessly diligently that they sometimes die after being “washed.”

Reproduction

The mating season is strictly seasonal, starting in mid-April. Ring-tailed lemurs give birth to one baby at a time, and twins are occasionally encountered. The offspring are usually born between August and October, at the beginning of the rainy season. Females reproduce annually, the duration of pregnancy is approximately 222 days, and the weight of the cub at birth is from 80 to 120 g. The newborn grabs onto the mother’s fur and hangs on it. In the first months, females carry their cubs on their stomachs, later on their backs. At the age of 1-2 months, the cub begins to leave the mother's back and makes independent forays, returning to the mother during sleep and feeding, and at the age of 5-6 months they become independent. After five months they wean themselves off milk. Females reach sexual maturity at the age of 20 months, males at the age of two and a half years. The lifespan of ring-tailed lemurs ranges from 34 to 37 years.

Raccoon dog

Our raccoon dog is exactly like a raccoon dog, and in its habits it resembles its neighbor, the opossum: it is also omnivorous, it also often carries chickens, it jumps and climbs trees just as deftly. Sometimes, like a sloth, he even crawls with his back down along a thin branch, fingering it with his paws. He’s also quite good at playing possum, pretending to be dead when his escape routes are cut off. And just like an opossum or, say, a bear, it sleeps in hollows in winter where the winters are cold. A cheerful, lively, playful, curious and gentle animal. Active at night, sleeps in a tree during the day, and less often in a badger hole. It swims well, and at low tide raccoons travel far beyond the receding sea - they catch crabs and fish in small lagoons and depressions filled with water.

Cubs - two to eight. They will be born in April - early May. Our zoologists have quite successfully acclimatized American raccoons in many places in the country: in the Gomel region, Krasnodar and Stavropol territories, Dagestan, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Primorsky Territory. However, “in the latter region,” writes G. A. Novikov, “acclimatization is proceeding unsatisfactorily.”

In addition, raccoons that escaped from fur farms have acclimatized in Germany: Hesse, Westphalia and Lower Saxony. On an area of ​​50 thousand square kilometers, about a thousand raccoons live here in the wild. And about half a thousand more - east of Berlin. Americans brought raccoons to Alaska and the Bahamas. On these and some other islands (Guadeloupe, Barbados, Las Tres Marias), according to American experts, five species of raccoons close to the striper, but special, live. Apparently, these are still only varieties: subspecies or races of the striper. Only the South American crabeater raccoon, although it belongs to the genus of raccoons and has the same habits, is a special species. If you remove the fluffy fur coat from the minnow (and from the tail too) and dress it in thin and short fur, you will get an animal that looks like a crab-eater. That is why the skins of crabeaters are not valued by furriers and are not among the millions of raccoon skins that are sold every year in the fur markets in the United States alone.

Animals of Australia

Australia is home to animals that cannot be found anywhere else except this continent. Also on the mainland there are introduced representatives of the fauna, who managed to get used to the tropical forests and savannas of a unique country.

Kangaroo

Kangaroos
Unusual-looking animals are a real symbol of Australia. The continent is home to several species of kangaroos of varying sizes. Large individuals can reach a weight of 90 kg, and their height can be up to 1.3 m. Mammals can live 27 years. Females have a pouch on their bellies that is used to carry their young after birth. Kangaroos feel comfortable in places where it is hot and dry. Mammals feed exclusively on plant food.

Koala

Koala
Translated from Latin, “koala” means “ashen marsupial bear,” although they have nothing to do with them. They belong to the marsupial family. Mammals live throughout the continent - from the warm north to the cold southern part. Animals feed only on eucalyptus leaves, easily digesting the plant’s poison. The peculiarity is that the koala hardly drinks water, only dew. During the daytime, these cute animals are passive and can calmly sit on a tree for 15 hours.

Platypus

Platypus
A unique animal is a mammal. Weight - 2 kg, length with tail - 55 cm. The animal is clumsy, but is reliably protected from enemies by toxic saliva, which is very dangerous for small animals. Platypuses live in the coastal areas of small fresh rivers, lakes, and wetlands. The daily diet includes mollusks, worms, crustaceans, larvae, and aquatic vegetation.

flying fox

Flying fox
Animals are not related to foxes, but belong to the group of bats. The body length is 6-7 cm, the wingspan is approximately 25 cm. Flying foxes live in any place where there are fruit-bearing trees. Animals love to eat nectar and pollen, especially from eucalyptus and figs, although they are also happy with other berries and fruits. They can fly more than 60 km per night.

Interesting fact : flying foxes prefer to get food at a distance of 20-50 km from their place of residence.

Kakomitsli

There are no crabeater raccoons in North America, but there lives here, in the southern states, another very cute animal of the same breed - kakimitsli, “cat squirrel”, or baby raccoon. It is slightly larger in size than a squirrel: its fluffy tail is 37 centimeters long, everything else is about the same. Yellowish-gray, the ears are large, and the tail is completely, from root to tip, in black and white rings. A very impressive tail.

A forest animal, it climbs trees no worse than a squirrel, but also lives in rocky deserts, in bushes and on hills. Shy, cautious and only hunts for prey at night; therefore, even where there are many “cat squirrels”, people rarely see them. The larger gray camomitsli lives in Central America.

In addition to stripers, crabeaters and camomitsli, the raccoon family includes three more species of noses, or coatis, kinkajous and three species of olingos (some live in South and Central America, and one species of noses lives only on the island of Cozumel, east of Yucatan) .

Animals of Africa

Amazing and unusual representatives of the animal kingdom of Africa have attracted adventure lovers for centuries. The mainland is home to herbivores, predators and omnivores, some of which are listed in the Red Book.

African elephant

African elephant
African elephants are found throughout the continent, both in the tropical forests of Western and Central Africa and in the south of the Sahara. Animals adapt to any habitat, as long as it is easy to find food and water. They belong to the elephant family and are the largest mammals on earth.

Elephants are divided into two types: forest elephants with tusks pointing straight down, and savannah elephants with tusks turned outward.
The first, darker, weighs approximately 5 tons, the second - 7-12. African elephants feed exclusively on plant foods. The animal's trunk allows it to lift weights of more than 200 kg. Interesting fact : the length of the ears of an African elephant is about 2 m. With their help, animals escape from the heat - when they flap, their own body temperature effectively decreases.

Giraffe

Giraffe
Artiodactyl mammal belongs to the giraffe family. The animal is the tallest on the planet. Male giraffes weigh 900-1200 kg. Their height is 5.5 - 6.1 m, with one third occupied by a slender neck. Females are usually slightly shorter and lighter. The habitat of giraffes is closer to the south and southeast of the Sahara. Unusual animals live most in the woodlands and savannas of Southern and Eastern Africa. Giraffes eat vegetation, preferring acacia foliage.

Zebra

Zebra
Odd-toed ungulate mammals belong to the equine family. The zebra's body length is approximately 2 m, weight - maximum 360 kg. Striped animals are divided into types: savanna, desert, mountain. The first two types live in the steppes in the east of the continent and the southern regions of the continent. Few mountain ones are found in the highlands. Animals are herbivores. To satisfy the body with enough calories, zebras consume 5-7 kg of food per day.

a lion

Lion
Mammal, predator, representative of the panther genus and the cat family. Lions differ in appearance by gender. The largest are males. Their weight and body size depend on the subspecies of the animal. On average, the weight of a male is 180-220 kg, the body length is from 2.5 m excluding the tail, the height of the withers is 120-125 cm. African lions live south of the Sahara, namely in the west, northwest, east, south -east of the African continent. The favorite habitats of predators are savannas.

Interesting fact : the roar of a lion is very loud and terrifying. The roar reaches 115 decibels, is heard at a distance of up to 10 km, vibrations from it raise clouds of dust.

Rhinoceros

Rhinoceros
The rhinoceros is the second largest animal on the continent. Its weight is 1-3.6 tons, length – 2-5 m, height – 1-3 m. Thick-skinned mammals feed on vegetation, eating about 72 kg of grass and leaves per day. A distinctive feature of the animal is its horn, which consists of the protein carotene and can reach 158 cm. There are two types of rhinoceroses living in Africa: black and white.

Interesting fact : September 22 is officially about. It was founded by the World Wildlife Fund.

Hippopotamus

Hippos
or hippos are representatives of artiodactyls. They prefer to settle in herds on the banks of bodies of fresh water. Despite their terrifying appearance, mammals eat plant matter. The body length of an adult reaches 5 m without a tail, the height at the withers is about 1.5 m, and the weight is 1.2-3.2 tons. Hippos feed on plant foods and meat, eating up to 50 kg per day.

Chimpanzee

Chimpanzees
live in almost all regions of Africa. The height of adult males is on average 170 cm, weight - 70 kg, females are correspondingly smaller. Chimpanzees are omnivores, and feed on both vegetation and bird eggs, honey, fish, and insects. They unite in groups, electing a leader who ensures that order and hierarchy are maintained.

Ostrich

Ostrich
The only representatives of the ratite family of flightless birds. The largest bird weighs on average 150 kg, height reaches 2.7 m. They prefer to live with zebras and antelopes and move in groups around the territory. Ostriches are capable of reaching speeds of up to 70 km/h, while the bird's step is approximately 4 m. They feed on small reptiles, plant food, and insects.

Interesting: Red Book of the Krasnodar Territory - list, description of animals, plants, mushrooms with photos and videos

coati

Coatis are brave, playful and very active animals. Their whole day is spent worrying about food. In small groups of about a dozen females and cubs, with their tails raised high, they dig the ground with long muzzles with very mobile noses. They smell a worm or larva in an old stump, sniffle, purr, and scratch with their claws. The entire forest is carefully combed - some down on the ground, others up in the trees. And everything is suitable for them as food: lizards, birds, insects, shellfish, roots, various fruits. As soon as they notice something suspicious, they immediately whistle loudly - and instantly the whole flock is already in the trees. It is safer to find out the causes of anxiety from above. At night they also sleep in trees, stretched out on thick branches. All other raccoons, on the contrary, roam at night.

They swim well and love water. There are small membranes between the fingers of the nose. Their habit, like that of a raccoon, is to rinse their paws, various objects, and even their tail in water! (They say about tame coatis that they cannot stand smokers. As soon as the owner lights a cigarette, he tries to snatch the cigarette from him and throw it away!)

Animals of the seas and oceans

The way of life of animals in the seas and oceans is amazing, interesting and diverse. Marine mammals spend most of their time in the water.

Whale

Whale
The largest representative of the deep sea is a warm-blooded animal that breathes through its lungs. A whale weighs about 150 tons with a body length of 25-33 m. Marine mammals live throughout the world's oceans, but they are not found in cold latitudes. Depending on their living conditions and time of year, whales eat differently. Their diet includes pteropods and cephalopods, crustaceans, and fish. Whales feed their offspring with milk.

Dolphin

Dolphin
Friendly, intelligent animals look very attractive. Adults weigh about 300 kg and have a body length of 2.5 m. Dolphins have a unique brain that remains active even if the animal is sleeping. They hunt for large schools of fish, shellfish and other marine life. They are able to eat up to 30 kg of food per day, since abundant nutrition maintains the thickness of subcutaneous fat. Animals prefer to stay in packs.

killer whale

Orca
This bright and mysterious animal belongs to the dolphin family. Males can reach 10 m in length, weighing approximately 8 tons. Females are 1.5-2 times smaller. Predators can live everywhere - from polar ice to tropical seas. Killer whales eat many types of fish, cephalopods, turtles, birds, and sea otters.

Interesting fact : every killer whale has white spots on its body. Their size and location are individual, just like people's fingerprints.

Kinkajou

The kinkajou is a small animal, gray-red, with a long, prehensile tail. The tail is its most remarkable feature. Only the binturong, a South Asian animal from the civet family, has a tail so capable of firmly grasping branches. None of the predators have any more.

The kinkajou is very similar to the olingo, but is distinguished by its prehensile tail. Kinkajou and the South Asian binturong from the civet family are the only predatory animals endowed with a tail capable of grasping branches.

The kinkajou's tongue is also notable, it is long and thin. That tongue can squeeze into any gap and extract as much honey as the animal wants. Honey and fruits are his delicacy. But the prehensile-tailed raccoon also destroys bird nests and, on occasion, eats various small animals. Kinkajou is good-natured and playful. It gets used to people quickly; tame kinkajous often live in Indian villages. The second name of this animal is potto. This is also the name of a lemur in Africa, potto, which is a strange thing! - looks a little like a kinkajou, although it is not at all related to it.

Ring-tailed lemur

Kingdom:

or
ring-tailed lemur
(lat.
Lemur catta
) is the most famous species of the lemur family.
This species is in its own genus, although many experts place it in the genera Eulemur
or
Hapalemur
. Belongs to the suborder of wet-nosed primates. The Madagascar name for the ring-tailed lemur is maki.