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Visit 14 unusual animals around the world
Because howler monkeys and koala bears are just so passe, Budget Travel has come up with a list of 14 crazy-looking and odd animals that you can visit in their natural habitats.
There's the hooked-nose proboscis monkey of Borneo, the google-eyed tarsier from the Philippines, and the Tasmanian echidna, which has a pouch like a marsupial, quills like a porcupine and the long sticky tongue of an anteater.
Some definitely got the cheated in the beauty department, like the female gelada baboon (found in Ethiopia), whose chest turns bright red as her hormone levels rise, and the Victoria crowned pigeon (from New Guinea) that looks like it's having a permanent bad hair day.
But some of them are so odd they're actually cute. The hairless naked mole rat (found in East Africa) is almost completely blind and, with its chubby body and big buck teeth, totally adorable. The aye-aye, a caffeinated-looking lemur with independently rotating ears, is found in Madagascar - and is it just me, or does it kind of look like Dobby from Harry Potter?
If you can't make it to see the animals in their homelands, you can still view many of them at zoos around the world. See the whole list of unusual animals here.
Filed under: News
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Fiznatty Aug 8th 2009 10:25PM
Fun premise for an article. I've only seen one of the listed species in the wild, and it may be the most accessible. There are pygmy marmosets that reside at Sacha Lodge along the Rio Napo in Ecuador and come down for easy viewing to eat the sap off a particular species of tree. If you want to tackle the list, you may want to start there. :)
Max
Sean McLachlan Aug 9th 2009 3:51AM
Don't forget the dodo at the Natural History Museum in Oxford. It's extinct, but still pretty cool. I think the one they have is the only remaining specimen.
Finn Aug 9th 2009 10:13AM
The linked article says that echidnas can be seen in "Tasmania and New Guinea". True, but it's a bit odd that they forgot to mention that place in between. You know, that little 7.5 million square km island. Where echidnas can be found just about anywhere, from city parks to the middle of the desert.
But yeah, widespread as they are, as egg-laying mammals they are pretty unusual.
Willy Wombat Aug 14th 2009 2:28AM
Please note that the koala is NOT A BEAR. We don't have bears in Australia. It is a MARSUPIAL, it has a pouch. So you should write 'Because howler monkeys and koalas are just so passe ......'. Otherwise, I enjoy reading Gadling very much.