The weirdest animals on Planet Earth

September 27, 2009

The star-nosed mole's snout has 22 fleshy tentacles that are used to identify food by touch. Often found in North America, it lives in wet lowland areas and eats small invertebrates, aquatic insects, worms and molluscs

The Hispaniolan solenodon, a strange looking shrew-like creature with a long snout and specialised teeth capable of delivering venom. Only two solenodon species exist today, one in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and the other in Cuba

Seapigs live on, or just underneath, the bottom of the ocean and feed on the mud of the seafloor. Scientists haven't yet worked out how they are such a successful deep-sea creature

The blobfish is a gelatinous mass with a density slightly less than that of the water it occupies. This helps it maintain buoyancy. Hovering just above the sea-floor, the blobfish gobbles edible matter that floats past it

Discovered in 2005 in the South Pacific Ocean, this creature was dubbed the "yeti lobster" or "yeti crab". It lives at a depth of 2,200 metres on hydrothermal vents along the Pacific-Antarctic

The aye-aye shares a lot in common with the woodpecker - it taps trees to find grubs. When food is located it uses its rodent-like teeth to gnaw a hole, then digs them out with its long middle finger

The saiga's unusually over-sized, and flexible, nose warms up the air in winter and filters out the dust in summer

With their unusual feeding habits and slime-producing capabilities, the hagfish has been dubbed the most "disgusting" of all sea creatures

Hairy frogfish walk along the seabed hunting for food. This rare creature can be found in Indonesia

Living at extreme depths, and among the rarest of octupuses, the Dumbo octupus gets its name from its ears which loosely resemble those of the Disney character, Dumbo

A viperfish is a deepwater fish with long, needle-like teeth and hinged lower jaws. It is one of the fiercest predators in the very deep part of the sea and is believed to attack its prey by luring its victim with a light producing organ

The shoebill is a very large bird found in tropical swamps of eastern Africa. It stands at an average of four feet with a wingspan of over seven feet. The species was only discovered by ornithologists in the 19th century

The guineafowl puffer, from the Pacific Ocean. When fully expanded, it can reach 50 cm in length

The frill-necked Lizard, so called because of the large ruff of skin around its neck, runs on its hind-legs when frightened. This behaviour has earnt it the name 'bicycle lizard' in Australia

The most distinctive trait of the proboscis monkey is the male's large protruding nose. It has been suggested that the female proboscis monkey prefers big-nosed males

The Sun Bear is found primarily in the tropical rainforests of Southeast Asia. At only four feet tall, it is the smallest member of the bear family, and it is often called the dog bear

The Komondor, a large Hungarian dog breed, has a long, thick, strikingly corded white coat and has been declared one of its nation's national treasures

Similiar to the komondor, the Hungarian puli also has a coat of dreadlock-type cords. The breed rarely moults and is deceptively fast and acrobatic

Hairless cats have been described in many regions of the world, but the first successful breed was the Sphynx. The earliest Sphynx, named Prune, was born in 1966