The Pygmy Marmoset and the Star Nosed Mole are some of the world’s weird animals, and I think if you have ever seen these weird animals on the television or in person that you would probably have to agree!
The world’s smallest monkey is the Calllithrix pygmaea, or the Pygmy Marmoset, from the rain forest of Brazil, Ecuador, Colombia and Peru. This monkey is less than 16 cm tall, but has a tail that can be up to 20 cm long. Male pygmy marmosets can weigh approximately 140 grams and females just 120 grams. It has a yellowish-brown coat, and it uses its unique claws for tree climbing. Pygmy marmosets eat insects, fruit, leaves and sap from the trees in the rain forest, and they use their special claws for making holes into the tree’s bark and extracting the sap.
One of the strangest-looking animals in the world is the Star Nosed Mole, or Condylura cristata. This small, dark brown and furry creature has 22 pink tentacles right in the end of its snout. It uses its fleshy tentacles, which form a circle on the snout, to find food including insects and worms. The Star Nosed Mole lives in northeast US and in east Canada in wet lowlands, and like other mole species it digs tunnels underwater and swims well.
The Helarctos malayanus, or Sun Bear, lives mainly in Southeast Asia. These rare animals of the tropical rain forest is the smallest bear in the world, and is just four feet tall. Its fur is much shorter than other bears’, and dark black or brownish black, but on the chest it has a yellowish orange mark that is shaped like a horseshoe. Another small creature, the Ailurus fulgens or Red Panda is less than half a meter tall. An inhabitant of the Himalayan mountains in south China and in Nepal, the Red Panda is not much bigger than a normal house cat.