10 Strange Animals You Didn’t Know Existed

 1. Japanese spider crab

The Japanese spider crab, Macrocheira kaempferi, is a species of marine crab that lives in the waters around Japan. It has the largest leg span of any arthropod, reaching up to 3.8 metres and weighing up to 41 pounds (19 kg). It is the subject of small-scale fishery which has led to a few conservation measures.

 2. Gobi Jerboa

Desert animals have to be able to cope with very harsh conditions. There are both hot and cold deserts around the world. In both types of desert climate, animals have to be able to exist in an area which is almost waterless for most of the year. In both types of desert, temperatures can vary widely. The Sahara in Africa, the world's hottest desert, has daytime temperatures as high as 58°C which can fall away to below freezing at night. Meanwhile, in the cold Asian deserts such as the Gobi, temperatures may fall to below -20°C for more than six months of the year.

 3. Long Eared Gobi Jerboa

 The long-eared jerboa is an incredibly adaptable animal, as it lives in extremely harsh conditions, with temperatures in the Gobi desert falling as low as -40°C in winter, and rising as high as +40°C in summer. Its huge ears may help it to cool down in the hot summer months when it is active. In winter, the species most likely hibernates in burrows underground. The long-eared jerboa is the subject of a ZSL conservation project as an EDGE mammals focal species.

 4. Cantor’s Giant Soft Shelled Turtle

 

  The Cantor's giant softshell turtle (Pelochelys cantorii) or Asian giant softshell turtle is a species of freshwater turtle. The turtle has a broad head and small eyes close to the tip of its snout. The carapace is smooth and olive-colored. Juveniles may have dark-spotted carapaces and heads, with yellow around the carapace.

5. Blob Fish

 The blobfish is a deep sea fish of the family Psychrolutidae. Inhabiting the deep waters off the coasts of mainland Australia and Tasmania, it is rarely seen by humans

6. Sunda flying lemur

 The Sunda flying lemur, also known as the Malayan flying lemur, is a species of colugo. Until recently, it was thought to be one of only two species of flying lemur, the other being the Philippine flying lemur which is found only in the Philippines

7. Star-Nosed Mole

The star-nosed mole is a small mole found in wet low areas of eastern Canada and the northeastern United States, with records extending along the Atlantic coast as far as extreme southeastern Georgia.

8. Dugong

 The dugong is a large marine mammal which, together with the manatees, is one of four living species of the order Sirenia.

9. Dugong

 The naked mole rat also known as the sand puppy or desert mole rat, is a burrowing rodent native to parts of East Africa and is the only species currently classified in the genus Heterocephalus.

10. Aye-aye

 The aye-aye is a lemur, a strepsirrhine primate native to Madagascar that combines rodent-like teeth and a special thin middle finger to fill the same ecological niche as a woodpecker.