Meet 10 of Africa’s Weirdest Mammals: From tall giraffes and clever hyenas to the massive whales that move up and down the eastern and western coastlines, you have heard of the Big Five and all of Africa’s other iconic species. But the region also has a range of odd and wonderful African species not typically highlighted in the media.

While some have developed amazing skills to protect themselves from the surroundings and predators, others use sensory abilities to find their prey. Ask your guide about these zoological beauties next time you are on safari in Africa to discover a part of nature you were not aware existed.

Let’s go through ten of the most odd animal species discovered in Africa.

Sweetheart Mole-Rat

Bees and ants are among the insects that are known to live in colonies where multiple members serve different purposes. In zoology, this is known as eusociality and is seen as the ideal degree of social organization. But did you know that such a eusocial mammal is Actually, there are only two species in the world: the naked mole-rat and its furrier distant relative, the Damaraland mole-rat.

The Damaraland mole-rat inhabits southern Angola and northern Namibia, as its name implies. Still, it encompasses most of Botswana, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Zambia as well. They will live anywhere where they can find enough food, but they particularly prefer the Kalahari red sand.

Food-wise, Damaraland mole-rats eat bulbs, corms, and tubers—parts of plants growing below ground. Using their big front teeth, they dig great networks of tunnels to reach and store food. Some people, indeed, believe these networks cover kilometers.

A single colony of mole rats can have up to 40 individuals, but for the species, around a dozen is more common. This colony features one couple who is in breeding. Every other person is basically infertile; they create their own breeding colonies as they will only become fertile if the colony expands and the breeding female dies.

Forget the fangs, subterranean manner of life, and little eyes. This eusocial behavior makes the Damaraland mole-rat among the most unusual species in Africa.

Shrew with four toes for Elephants

Apart from the Big Five, South Africa also has a Small Five. Like elephant shrews, every one of them has a component of their name in a larger equivalent. They are so-called not for their size as their long, flexible snouts help them to detect insects and other prey. Elephant shrews are not at all like rodents, despite their remarkable resemblance to mice, shrews, and rats. Instead they belong to the clade Afrotheria, which also includes aardvarks, elephants, and hyraxes.

Unlike most elephant shrews, the four-toed elephant shrew develops four toes on its rear feet. Rising to a maximum weight of 280 g, it also has pointier ears and larger eyes than most other elephant shrews. By small animal standards, that is rather huge and fairly honors its name. These species abound throughout southern, eastern, and central Africa.

Wait; it gets rather more unusual. Four-toed elephant shrew conflicts are more like boxing contests than animal slaps. The small animals stand on their hind legs and use their front paws to grapple and strike each other, throwing in fair measure lots of squeaking and shrieking.

Aardvark

Like the four-toed elephant shrew, the aardvark (lit. “earth pig”) is a member of the Afrotheria clade alongside a rather strange mix of animals. Indeed, the appearance of elephants and hyraxes is quite dissimilar. The aardvark, with its long pig-like snout, donkey-like ears, and claws seemingly capable of great damage, perfectly fits into this group of misfits.

Though it looks much like the anteaters of Central and South America, the nocturnal aardvark is the result of “convergent evolution” and is only fairly remotely related to them. Still, it uses a big, sticky tongue to lick hundreds of ants and termites and eats largely them.

Most of sub-Saharan Africa is home to aardvarks. More than any other species, the one with nine olfactory bulbs in its nose uses its unusual and remarkable senses to locate its food. Its large ears also have purposes beyond adornment. Once it reaches a termite mound or anthill, it tears through the crust with hoof-like claws and begins to eat up to 50,000 insects in one night.

It also digs its own tunnels, which are regularly seen in sandy rural regions along the roadsides. Aardvarks sometimes migrate on to new tunnels after some time, leaving the old ones open to several species like warthogs, bat-eared foxes, and even African wild dogs.

Spring Hare originating from South Africa

Imagine a hare combined with a squirrel to produce the South African springhare. Depending on your point of view, this strange-looking African creature could be utterly terrifying, untidy, or very lovely.

Found in areas of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Mozambique, Botswana, and South Africa, it looks a lot like a rabbit or hare but is really a rodent. It prefers sandy ground where it might dig using its legs and teeth to munch through hardy roots. Usually eats vegetation, occasionally hunts insects and scavenges carrion.

As previously mentioned, the South African springhare is a diverse species. It most certainly resembles a kangaroo with its long tail, short front legs, and powerful rear legs capable of propelling it up to two meters. From close-up, its head seems to be quite squirrel-like, only with significantly larger eyes. It may weigh up to 3.5 kg and span 80 cm with the bustling tail included.

Still, the springhare’s odd look isn’t its most remarkable trait. Data published in 2021 by researchers indicates that among animals globally, the South African springhare is among the only ones with East African cousins able to show biofluorescence. Some of its fur absorbs light, converts it into another form, then releases it once more.

Ground pangolin

Presenting one of the most prehistoric-looking species found in Africa: the ground pangolin Though sadly a lot of this has to do with the ongoing use of pangolins for bushmeat and traditional medicine, this scaly, ant-eating anomaly is maybe one of the better-known unusual animals on the continent. Actually, ground pangolin is a major subject of conservation projects, as the International Union for the Conservation of Nature lists it as “Vulnerable”.

Ground pangolin habitat is savannah woodland from South Africa northward all the way to Sudan and Chad. It is absent from most of Central and West Africa, where the large pangolin substitutes. At 1.6 m long, including the tail, the ground pangolin is a behemoth in its own right, weighing up to 27 kg. Its scales shockingly make up almost twenty percent of its overall body weight.

The pangolin has one weak area, however, looking like a tank: its underside. When threatened, it will roll up and rely on its keratin scales as a successful barrier. Given that it walks mostly on its hind legs, the ground pangolin also has an antiquated quality—that of a dinosaur. Using its strong front claws, it breaks into termite nests and catches insects with its long, sticky tongue, long, in fact, longer than the pangolin itself.

Oddly, ground pangolins have no teeth. Rather, their robust stomachs have sharp spines that crush insects with a little help from small stones the animal consumes for this particular purpose. Its tail is a weapon; it rolls in excrement; it may spit foul-smelling acid from its rear end to scare off predators.

Bungung

The dugong, commonly known as the sea cow, is the last remnant sirenian in the Indo-West Pacific region. While some small settlements still exist along the coast of East Africa, most live on Australia’s northern coast. The most well-known of these groups lives in Mozambique’s Bazaruto Archipelago. There are 120 strong members. Moreover, as part of the Afrotheria group, they are far more closely related to elephants than they are to other aquatic animals, including seals and whales.

Still, it has somewhat dolphin-like tail flukes and flippers. Its few hairs scattered around its body could potentially be involved in tactile feedback. This is especially clear around the nose, where an extremely muscular upper lip helps to devour its preferred diet, seagrass. Oddly for most mammals, but not for marine life, its nostrils lie on top of its head. Its poor vision means it depends on scent to find food and hearing to track predators.

But given its weight—up to a ton—its main real risk comes from people, orcas, and large sharks. Once spanning great distances of seagrass meadows, habitat loss is devastating damage on them. Hunting for blubber and boat propellers also exposes it to weaknesses.

Another anomaly is its solid bones, many of which have very little or none at all of bone marrow. This should help the dugong stay somewhat below the water surface. It also possesses blood that clots surprisingly rapidly and bigger kidneys that help it to survive in its saltwater home.

Bat-Eared Fox

Your eyes are drawn to the large, up to 13 cm long ears of the bat-eared fox right away. The fox’s ears are among the largest in relative scale of any canid yet its total length just reaches 66 cm. Usually found in underground burrows, this curious fox is relatively abundant in much of East and southern Africa.

Apart from appearance, the food of the bat-eared fox reveals why it is an uncommon member of the canid family. Actually, it is the only really insectivorous canid and mostly eats harvester termites. It does, however, also eat eggs, small animals, and other insects as well.

Not unexpectedly, they find prey using their sense of hearing, even if the termites are hiding underground. Since they are really good at identifying harvester termites, some people actually use them to control termites on their fields.

Probably the most unusual aspect of the bat-eared fox is its lack of actual water consumption. The insects it eats remarkably supply all the water needed. In the hot, arid environments where it lives, big ears also help to regulate body temperature. Finally, its remarkable jaw muscles allow it to open and close its mouth five times a second!

Ten-year lowland streaking

About odd noises, the animal world has some quite amazing performers. Take the poor cricket for instance. By rubbing their leathery forewings together, these little insects produce the distinctive “chirping” noise you either love or hate. But did you know that something similar may be done by the lowland striped tenrec of Madagascar?

Tenrecs belong to the Afrotheria group, so even if they resemble rodents, they are not like dugongs, elephant shrews, or aardvarks. Among the 31 surviving species, only Madagascar has them; the lowland streaking tenrec is one of them. One of the “spiny tenrecs,” it has quills all over to discourage predators. Given that you only get to be 172 mm long, that is rather important.

Its name also comes from a yellow or brown stripe across its whole body. With its head focused, its quills resemble the mane of a lion. But what gives the lowland striped tenrec such a distinctive and strange attraction? Its quills can thus point forward and vibrate or rub them together to produce high-frequency sounds. Scientists believe the tenrec either battles off predators or interacts with its offspring.

This makes this the only mammal on Earth whose sound production comes from stridulating. Other strange behaviors are its predisposition to headbutt other creatures and its tendency to hibernate—even though its habitat is tropical.

Aye-Aye

Present the most mysterious Madagascar resident: the aye-aye. Also the weirdest lemur on the island and the largest nocturnal primate on Earth. With its long, skeleton fingers, striking eyes, and bat-like ears, this animal is clearly strange-looking. Some Malagasy people consider it an omen of death; thus, sadly, rural areas still persecute it.

The unusual qualities of the aye-aye serve purposes beyond ornamentation. Its feeding activity draws most interest even though its large eyes help it to see in the dark. Among the only species on Earth that use “percussive foraging” to find their prey—insect grubs—its sophisticated ears let it precisely echolocate its prey when it taps its long, thin third finger along tree bark. Then, using its rodent-like teeth, it creates a small hole and fishes the grub out with the hooked nail on the same finger. Less cleverly, it also picks its nose and uses its unusual fingers to devour its own mucus.

Mothers feed their babies from two nipples found near the crotch. Men begin to submit to women at this time, most likely in order to provide them better access to food. Mostly living in trees, aye-ayes climb four kilometers per night using vertical jumps.

Like many other species of Madagascar, the aye-aye faces great threats, including deforestation and widespread farming persecution. Since the IUCN lists this unique species as endangered, work has to be done to preserve it.

Large Tortoise in Aldabra

Though Africa has her shelled giant scattered throughout many Indian Ocean islands, the Galapagos Archipelago’s gigantic tortoises seem to be always grabbing the headlines. Among the largest tortoises on Earth, the Aldabra giant tortoise comes from the Seychelles’ Aldabra Atoll. Introduced today on Mauritius, Rodrigues, and Zanzibar, it replaces long-extinct giant tortoise species on the former two islands.

So, roughly speaking, how big is this giant tortoise? Over its supposedly over 200-year career, the tortoise could grow over 1.2 m long. Actually, the oldest known specimen was supposedly 255 when he died and lived in the Kolkata Zoo in India between 1875 and 2006. Men usually weigh around 250 kg, hence they are more than 1,600 times larger than the smallest tortoise discovered worldwide, the speckled padloper from South Africa.

Like the Galapagos giant tortoise, the Aldabra species most definitely evolved to be that large by means of a mechanism called “island gigantism.”. Usually, this happens when a species settles on an island and, over time, breaks free from the constraints keeping it from expanding bigger on the mainland.

Eat fruit, leaves, grass, and foliage, Aldabra giant tortoises. Oddly, though, studies have shown one female hunting and consuming a little seabird in the Seychelles. They also occasionally eat carrion.

Not least of all, celebration of some of Africa’s most unusual animals is perfectly justified since many of them are icons of their respective countries. While some mirror the very extremes of animal evolution, others still teach us about the animal kingdom we never would have imagined was possible.

Although every one of these ten species has a fascinating story, you will only be able to truly value their uniqueness up close. Though you might have to work extra to see them, they would be fantastic additions to your wish list for forthcoming African safaris. Their quirkiness is finally what makes them so remarkable.