You’ve heard jokes like these all your life: What do you get if you cross an octopus with a cow? An animal that can milk itself.
I didn’t find such an animal, but the world has plenty of strange
species that at first glance appear to be hybrids of unrelated species
because they have attributes that surprise us. However, we are only
surprised because our personal experiences don’t encompass all that
nature offers.
1. Turtle + Hedgehog = Armadillo
Rudyard Kipling wrote the story The Beginning of the Armadillos,
in which the animal came from a tortoise and a hedgehog. They didn’t
join to give birth to armadillos; instead, they taught each other their
talents. The hedgehog helped the tortoise learn to curl into a ball, and
the tortoise taught the hedgehog to swim, which toughened up his spines
into armor. Before they knew it, both had turned into armadillos.
Here in the real world, armadillos
are related to both sloths and anteaters and are native to Latin
America except for the nine-banded armadillo we see in the US. In
certain states they are called “speed bumps”. Armadillo image by Flickr user Ben Cooper.
2. Giraffe + Zebra = Okapi
The okapi (Okapia johnstoni)
appears to be a short giraffe with a zebra’s legs tacked as an
afterthought. The animal, which lives only in the Democratic Republic of
the Congo (and in zoos), is actually related to the giraffe but was
“shorted” in the neck department. To make up for that oversight, the
okapi has a tongue long enough to lick its own ears! The zebra stripes
are thought to be used as camouflage, and to make it easy for okapi
young to follow their mothers through the rain forest. Okapi image by Raul654.
3. Anteater + Armadillo = Pangolin
The pangolin
is also known as the spiny anteater. They are mammals, but have keratin
scales over their bodies. They roll up into a ball in defense like an
armadillo or a hedgehog. Recent genetic studies show that pangolins are
related to neither anteaters (despite the fact that they eat ants) nor
armadillos. But the weirdness doesn’t stop there: pangolins can spray a
nasty musk just like a skunk. And they don’t have any teeth!
4. Bird + Fox = Fruit Bat
Fruit bats
encompass several species and are also called megabats or flying foxes.
What sets fruit bats apart from your garden variety insect-eating
belfry-hangers is the fact that most fruit bats do not use echolocation
to get around. They need their eyes big and their noses long to sense
where they are going, so their faces look like more familiar land
mammals -particularly dogs. No doubt that’s where the term flying fox
came from. If you couldn’t see a fruit bat’s wings, you might have a hard time guessing the species. Fox image by Flickr user Kris *Thirty6Red*. Bat image by Flickr user smccann.
5. Duck + Beaver = Platypus
The platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus)
of Australia looks like a taxidermy experiment in which a mammal has
been accessorized with a beaver’s tail, a duck’s bill, the venom of a
snake, and the feet of an otter. This animal is not related to any of
the others, however. The platypus is a monotreme. It shares that order
with only four other species which are all echidnas. It is truly unique
in the animal kingdom, and the most likely of any in this list to be an
example of God’s sense of humor. Platypus image by Stefan Kraft.
6. Hoop Snake + Lizard = Armadillo Girdled Lizard
This lizard might be what people saw when they came up with the legend of the hoop snake (featured in a previous post). You don’t find too many lizards that protect themselves by rolling into a ball, but the Armadillo Girdled Lizard (Cordylus cataphractus) does just that. This lizard grabs its tail with its mouth
and forms a ring with its spines pointing out. Any predator will have a
hard time figuring this thing out, much less eating it! The name is
just a descriptor; this lizard has no relation to an armadillo, which is
a mammal.
source : http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/43622
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