# What's the last animal whose existance has come to your attention? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 28, 2005, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-last-animal-whose-existance-has-come-to-your-attention/337466 "2005-12-28T18:43:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2005, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-last-animal-whose-existance-has-come-to-your-attention/337466/1 "2005-12-28T18:43:42Z")
Species or breed, I mean, not an individual. Double checking to see if I was right about what family rabbits belong to, I came across the third member of their family [Pika](http://www.nhptv.org/natureworks/americanpika.htm). Never even heard of them before today, but now I wish we had them on this coast too. But I’m also sort of picturing them as yellow and irritable too. 🙂 So, the last animal you didn’t realize existed? ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2005, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-last-animal-whose-existance-has-come-to-your-attention/337466/2 "2005-12-28T19:08:01Z")
[This weird crustacean](http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1329973) that first attaches itself to a fish’s tongue–then sort _becomes_ the tongue! [Solenodons](http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Solenodon_cubanus.html) [Tree hyraxes](http://www.americazoo.com/goto/index/mammals/337.htm), hooved and arboreal! BTW, all are critters that I first encountered on this message board (but not necessarily this forum). ---
**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2005, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-last-animal-whose-existance-has-come-to-your-attention/337466/3 "2005-12-28T19:11:37Z")
Well…the pika! 😛 But excluding that, I think it would be the jack jumper ants. They have a sting that can sometimes be fatal by causing anaphylatic shock. They are very aggressive, and can jump quite a ways for an ant (hence the name). Basuically like a fire ant made even worse. They are found, like all these crazy, deadly animals, in Australia. Honestly, how DO you people manage to survive down there? Between giant stinging TREES, jellyfish that kill within minutes, and crocodiles that tear your flesh off, you’d think that no one could possibly survive down there. 😛 But I guess having kangaroos and koalas make up for it. ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2005, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-last-animal-whose-existance-has-come-to-your-attention/337466/4 "2005-12-28T19:32:42Z")
I saw a bit on the Travel Channel a couple days ago about a dwarf Sloth. It was found isolated on some island. It seems to be about the size of a raccoon. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2005, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-last-animal-whose-existance-has-come-to-your-attention/337466/5 "2005-12-28T19:35:19Z")
The colossal squid. They’re M\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*ING COLOSSAL!! \ Who dares say no!? \ ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Mapp](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miss_mapp/32/369_2.png) [@Miss\_Mapp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Mapp)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2005, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-last-animal-whose-existance-has-come-to-your-attention/337466/6 "2005-12-28T19:36:19Z")
Sugar gliders. The first time I heard someone mention they had one as a pet, I had no idea what they were talking about. ---
**Author:** ![cherry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/da6949/32.png) [@cherry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cherry)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2005, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-last-animal-whose-existance-has-come-to-your-attention/337466/7 "2005-12-28T19:43:48Z")
I went grey whale watching yesterday off Point Loma. They think he was a male. And he actually breached. Very cool. But during my reseach last night of grey whales I learned about beaked whales that I didn’t know existed. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2005, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-last-animal-whose-existance-has-come-to-your-attention/337466/8 "2005-12-28T19:46:20Z")
The [Harlequin Ladybird](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/12/28/nlady28.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/12/28/ixhome.html), about twenty minutes ago. ---
**Author:** ![Tupug\_Anachi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7993a0/32.png) [@Tupug\_Anachi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tupug_Anachi)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2005, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-last-animal-whose-existance-has-come-to-your-attention/337466/9 "2005-12-28T19:51:13Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > Species or breed, I mean, not an individual. > > Double checking to see if I was right about what family rabbits belong to, I came across the third member of their family [Pika](http://www.nhptv.org/natureworks/americanpika.htm). Never even heard of them before today, but now I wish we had them on this coast too. But I’m also sort of picturing them as yellow and irritable too. 🙂 > > So, the last animal you didn’t realize existed? I lived in Jackson Hole in 1980 and the durn things were making road pizzas everywhere. 😛 They would also waltz right in to any doorway that was half open. Fortunately, their active phase is brief and they went back to sleep in the early fall. ---
**Author:** ![Man\_With\_a\_Cat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/cab0a1/32.png) [@Man\_With\_a\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Man_With_a_Cat)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2005, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-last-animal-whose-existance-has-come-to-your-attention/337466/10 "2005-12-28T19:56:15Z")
I don’t even know what it’s called, or even now that I think of it, if technically it was an animal… ::Warning - there be run on sentences ahead, yawr:: Watching a Discovery Channel show last night about Tsunamis, and they’re with the crew of geologists looking for the actual fault line that caused last Christmas’s eartquake in the Indian Ocean, and they find a likely area where there exists a huge rockslide - like boulders the size of city blocks IIRC. But the problem is there’s this one little lonely thingee growing out of the bottom of the ocean, and it’s an anemone, or flower or something. (Never paid attention in deep-sea biology class) And it’s such a fragile thing that if that landslide happened last year, and it happened THERE, this thing couldn’t be there (keeping up?), so they sucked it into the submersible’s little sucky-thing and found out it had been there for years at least so they didn’t find the exact faultline after all. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2005, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-last-animal-whose-existance-has-come-to-your-attention/337466/11 "2005-12-28T20:00:10Z")
The Rock-Hyrax, which I learned about [thread=342118]here[/thread] ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2005, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-last-animal-whose-existance-has-come-to-your-attention/337466/12 "2005-12-28T20:18:42Z")
I forgot to mention the real-life critter I saw just yesterday :smack: I thought it was a finch at first, because it was so small, but when I open the door I realized that it hung from _under_ the suet feeder to eat and had a sharp little beak, so I think it’s probably a woodpecker. Slate blue, whitish head and belly, dark beak, less than 3" from beak to tail… no idea what kind he was, still. ---
**Author:** ![stringy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@stringy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stringy)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2005, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-last-animal-whose-existance-has-come-to-your-attention/337466/13 "2005-12-29T03:29:53Z")
The [Kakapo from New Zealand](http://www.kakaporecovery.org.nz/index1.html) - a funny looking bird on the verge of extinction because (like pandas) they’re very picking about their mating habits, and they have a distinctive smell that lets imported predators (dogs, cats, etc) know where they are. I find them very endearing little guys 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2005, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-last-animal-whose-existance-has-come-to-your-attention/337466/14 "2005-12-29T16:25:55Z")
The Discovery Channel put me off my Wheaties with a story about a species of frog which incubates its eggs under a layer of skin on its back. When they hatched, wart-like protusions spewed out little frogs, leaving behind craters and dead, hanging skin. I would have been a lot happier not knowing that frog existed. A LOT happier. ---
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2005, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-last-animal-whose-existance-has-come-to-your-attention/337466/15 "2005-12-29T16:37:06Z")
I can’t remember the name of the natural history show I was watching, but they showed a _fossa_ from, I believe, the island of Madagascar. The fossa is a predatory animal which is specialized in order to capture its main prey, which are lemurs and other tree-dwelling critters. The film showed it being able to leap from tree to tree the way lemurs can - it had powerful, long back legs. You’d think it was a type of cat or even a dog, but, IIRC, its closest relative is a mongoose. Fascinating stuff. ---
**Author:** ![yBeayf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/e274bd/32.png) [@yBeayf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yBeayf)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2005, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-last-animal-whose-existance-has-come-to-your-attention/337466/16 "2005-12-29T16:45:14Z")
> [@](#): > > The Harlequin Ladybird, about twenty minutes ago. That explains why I never see any of the dark red ladybugs that were common in my youth. ☹ Oh yeah, the harlequin ladybird, apparently. ---
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2005, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-last-animal-whose-existance-has-come-to-your-attention/337466/17 "2005-12-29T17:22:00Z")
Oops, I meant to post a link to an image of the fossa. [Here’s](http://www.quantum-conservation.org/EEP/fossa.gif) one. Cool-looking predator, isn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![cher3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/da6949/32.png) [@cher3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cher3)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2005, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-last-animal-whose-existance-has-come-to-your-attention/337466/18 "2005-12-29T18:09:38Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > I forgot to mention the real-life critter I saw just yesterday :smack: > > I thought it was a finch at first, because it was so small, but when I open the door I realized that it hung from _under_ the suet feeder to eat and had a sharp little beak, so I think it’s probably a woodpecker. Slate blue, whitish head and belly, dark beak, less than 3" from beak to tail… no idea what kind he was, still. Sounds like a nuthatch: [http://www.audubonfargomoorhead.com/White-breasted%20nuthatch.jpg](http://www.audubonfargomoorhead.com/White-breasted%20nuthatch.jpg) They’re very cute and are never right side up when there is an opportunity to be upside down ---
**Author:** ![Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bippy_the_Beardless)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2005, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-last-animal-whose-existance-has-come-to-your-attention/337466/19 "2005-12-29T19:52:44Z")
[Honey Badger](http://www.honeybadger.com/) after watching “The Gods are Crazy 2”, one of the coolest animals in Africa. ---
**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2005, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-last-animal-whose-existance-has-come-to-your-attention/337466/20 "2005-12-29T22:55:44Z")
[Red Phalaropes](http://www.mbayaq.org/efc/living_species/default.asp?hOri=1&inhab=462) For some reason, they’re showing up on land here, baffling the folks that pay attention to small birds. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-last-animal-whose-existance-has-come-to-your-attention/337466.md?page=2)