At Animal Triangle, We shall explore ‘Animals with Long and Weird Faces’, explaining what makes their faces long as well as weird.
In this Article, We also show you pictures of these animals so you can see how Long and Weird their faces really are.
Table of Contents
Animals with Long faces
Giraffe
A giraffe is one of the tallest land mammals currently living on the earth that belongs to the family Giraffidae and is found in East Africa, Southern Africa, and other places.
Apart from having a long neck and legs, A giraffe also has a long face. Its face has dark brown fur but doesn’t have spots like in the rest of its body. A prominent median lump is present on its face, located above the nose and between the eyes, that has actually emerged from its skull that is used in calcium deposits, especially in males as it develops well as they mature.
Surprisingly, A giraffe face has movable ears, slit-shaped nostril that is an adaptation to prevent the incoming sand, horn-like ossicones originated from the skull and helps in thermoregulation.
Camel
A Camel, also known as the ship of the desert, is a large-sized mammal that belongs to Genus Camelus, Family Camelidae, is found in the Sahara Desert, Afghanistan, Australia, China, and Mongolia.
They have long faces which include desert-adapted specialized eyes, lips and nostrils. The face of the camel is continuously exposed to the blowing sand so in order to protect from blowing sand it has nostrils that can close or open, a special feature that can prevent the incoming sand. Whereas the eyes have long and thick eyelashes to keep the sand away from reaching inside their eyes.
Surprisingly, They have three lips, two upper lips, and one lower lip. These two upper lips are actually made by splitting common upper lips and each side of the lips works independently allowing them to pick a specific part of the vegetation.
okapi
The okapi, also known as the forest giraffe, and zebra giraffe, is a zebra-looking mammal even though it’s not related to zebras. These animals belong to Genus Okapia, Family Giraffidae, and are found in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and central Africa.
They have long faces with white-colored fur on the lateral surface of the face and also around the eyes while the rest of the faces have black and brown-reddish color fur. On the top of its face are two short, horn-like protuberances called ossicones. This is the distinguishing feature between males and females as the females lack them while the males possess these ossicones that can reach up to 6 inches in length.
Surprisingly, Its long face helps them to reach the ground vegetation easily. Unfortunately, Its ossicones can be damaged while fighting against predators such as leopards and other big cats.
Moose
A moose, also known as elk in Eurasia, is a large-sized deer species that belong to Genus Alces, Family Cervidae, and is found in Maine, Washington, Canada, and Alaska.
A striking feature of this animal is its long face, unlike other deers it has a long face. It has a brown-furred face with a hanging chin called a dewlap, a flap of skin, that is present in both males and females of the moose and is used to show dominance and mating. The long face is also due to the contribution from the nose as it is large and is adapted for sniffing predators or potential mates.
Surprisingly, the males use its dewlap to transfer their scent to the females by rubbing the cow, a female moose, a process called chinning during the mating season.
Long face 8 animals and weird faces 8 animals minimum ( for this article )
Saiga Antelope
A saiga antelope, also known as saiga, is an antelope species that belongs to Genus Saiga, Family Bovidae, and is found in Uzbekistan, Mongolia, and other regions of Central Asia.
One can notice its long face due to the presence of long noses. Unlike other antelopes, This is antelope with a long face that has light brown fur and a wider and flexible nose that almost looks like the trunks of an elephant. This mizzle helps them to warm the incoming cold air during winter, cool the incoming hot air during the summer and also filters the incoming dust particles as each nostril is lined by mucous membranes.
Surprisingly, They look like alien animals from an alien planet due to their long faces with long and inflatable noses.
Baboons
The baboons, including Hamadryas baboon, Olive baboon, Yellow baboon, Chacma baboon, are the omnivorous monkeys in the Old World monkeys that belongs to the Genus Papio, Family Cercopithecidae, and is found in Africa, Arabia, and other places.
They have long faces that almost look like dog faces. Its face has closely located eyes with thick ridges, long dog-like muzzles, stronger jaws, as it is adapted for an omnivorous diet that includes meat, and lacks fur over the muzzles.
An interesting fact about them is they have partially covered fur on their faces, especially the muzzles lack the fur to avoid contact of bacteria from the meat and blood, and to prevent dust deposition.
Aardvark
An aardvark is a nocturnal pig-looking animal that belongs to Genus Orycteropus, Family Orycteropodidae, and is found in woodlands, savannas, rainforests, Sahara, also in Africa.
An aardvark is an awkward-looking animal that even looks like a pig due to its long face with a long snout. It has a long, narrow face with white fur that is very less distributed on it, a pig-like elongated nose good at sniffing the food and locating the food sources.
An interesting fact about them is they are called ‘earth pig’ in South Africa’s Afrikaans language. As they possess a long face like a pig, a pair of long ears like a rabbit, and long-tail like a kangaroo.
Animals with Weird faces
Aye-aye
The aye-aye is a nocturnal lemur that belongs to Genus Daubentonia, Family Daubentoniidae, and is found on the island of Madagascar.
Aye-ayes are weird looking animals because they have a dark brown-black color of coarse fur, a short face, large eyes, and bat-like ears.
Because of their weird face they are considered as an omen of ill luck and killed on sight by some parts of the world.
Hatchet fish
A hatchet fish is a weird-looking fish that belongs to Family Sternoptychidae, Order Stomiiformes, and is found in temperate waters of the ocean across the world.
They are really weird aquatic creatures, especially their appearance when the mouth is opened makes you frightened.
They have extremely compressed lateral bodies, large protruding eyes, a mouth located at the tip of their snout, and downward in the direction making them look like unhappy faces.
Potoo
A Potoo, also known as poor-me-ones, is a weird-looking bird related to the nightjar and frogmouth, that belongs to Genus Nyctibius, Family Nyctibiidae, and is found in Central America, South America, Mexico, and other places.
It has a remarkably unusual appearance than other birds because of its face. The head or face has a larger proportion of eyes, even larger than nightjars eyes, a stockier, wider, and much heavier bills like those of the frogmouth,
They have the best camouflage because of their plumage with feathers containing brown with streaks of varying colors such as gray, black, and reddish-brown.
Blobfish
A blobfish, also known as smooth-head blobfish, is a deep-sea fish that belongs to Genus Psychrolutes, Family Psychrolutidae, and is found in the deep oceans about 4,000 feet depth, Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, and other parts of oceans.
They have weird faces that look only weird when they are taken out of the water. In the depths of the ocean, they look normal because the surrounding water pressure keeps them in shape but once they are out of the water, their body loses its normal shape making them look weird simply because low pressure acts on their body causing a deform.
Interestingly, They neither possess a skeleton nor well-developed muscle but a jelly-like skin causing loss of shape under low pressure.
Red-lipped Batfish
The red-lipped batfish, also known as Galapagos batfish, is an unusual fish that belongs to Genus Ogcocephalus, Family Ogcocephalidae, and is found in the Galapagos Islands, Peru, and other parts of the world’ ocean.
Like it’s weird name ‘red-lipped batfish’, it also has a weird face and weird body too. A striking feature of this fish is its red-lipped mouth. The face has a long and sharp nose with a weird lip that seems to have lipstick on it. The males with bright colored lips are expected to attract the female fishes.
Surprisingly, they use well-developed and adapted pectoral, pelvic, and anal fins for walking on the ocean surface. They also possess a long dorsal fin function as a lure for prey.
Leaf-tailed gecko
The leaf-tailed gecko, also known as eyelash leaf-tailed gecko, the phantastic leaf-tailed gecko, is a gecko species that belong to Genus Uroplatus, Family Gekkonidae, and is found in the island of Madagascar.
Let me tell you, They don’t just have a weird face but also a weird and unbelievable body that looks like a leaf, giving the name leaf-tailed gecko.
They have weird faces because of their weird-looking eyes that drive you crazy. They look happier and excited when they open their mouths.
Tube-nosed Bat
The tube-nosed bat is a fruit-eating bat that belongs to Family Pteropodidae, Order Chiroptera, and is found in north-eastern Australia, New Guinea, and other places of the world.
This is the fruit-eating bat with a weird face. A striking feature of these bats is their unusual nostrils protruding from the short and rounded muzzle. It has a weird face because of its long and tubular in shaped nostrils, and brown-orange colored protruding eyes.
Interestingly, They have the strangest and weird faces, along with unusual-looking mouths and ears.
Star Nosed Mole
A star-nosed mole is a small-sized mole that belongs to Genus Condylura, Family Talpidae, and is found in Canada and the northern US.
The star-nosed mole has a weird face because of its star-shaped nose making them look weird. Its eyes are poorly developed, Thus, in contrast to its eyes, It has a highly advanced nose containing fleshy appendages of about 25,000 tiny sensory receptors good at touch sensitivity.
A star-nosed mole is weird simply because of its weird-looking nose containing about 20 pink-colored appendages.
Read More : Animals With Multiple Eyes !