Don’t let the cute exterior fool you, even though dogs and raccoons are used to living around humans.

This creature is 100% a wild animal.

Raccoon dogs are found in the forests of East Asia and East Europe. Locals call them by different names like neoguri, tanuki, or mangut.

These raccoon-looking wild dogs aren’t often seen outside of their lairs during the day.

They are nocturnal by nature, prefering to wander around and hunt when the sun sets.

Isopods don’t really grow to be so large. It’s a good thing too once you see this picture.

These giant isopods are just one of the almost twenty species of large isopods in the genus Bathynomus.

Found mostly in the cold, deep waters of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans, their large size is because of deep-sea gigantism.

Creatures of the deep have the tendency to grow much larger than similar species that reside in shallower water.

The pacu fish is similar to other fish in most ways. It has a healthy set of chompers that look uncannily like human teeth though.

Fishermen from Papua New Guinea, take special precautions to protect their sensitive areas from this fish, since they can be aggressive.

The pacu is related to the piranha, another omnivorous fish with sharp teeth.

But the pacu feed mainly on plant material, sp their teeth are made more for grinding and chewing, not tearing.

Pacu can grow nearly four feet long.

The mantis shrimp is a very unique creature. They’re also called as sea locusts, prawn killers, and “thumb splitters.”

They are predators in tropical and subtropical waters, hunting with only its fists.

These shrimp are able to strike underwater with incredible speed and power, with an acceleration of more than ten thousand times the force of gravity, that the water creates special cavitation bubbles when they punch.

The bubbles create a force of fifteen hundred newtons, collapsing around their prey.

This is what happens when you jam three flying animals together into one body.

It’s a moth, but like a hummingbird, it feeds on flowers and makes a similar humming sound.

It does look similar to a hummingbird so no one knows why they decided to add “hawk” to the name.

The hummingbird hawk-moth can be found in a great part of the northern hemisphere.

That’s aside from the Americas, all the way from Portugal to Japan, as far south as the equator and as far north as the Arctic Circle.

It’s also good at recognizing colors.

It’s a little hard to tell but look close enough and you’ll see a bug. These are also called thorn bugs, closely related to cicadas, which are those noisy guys in the trees.

Those beaks are used to pierce plant stems and suck out the tasty sap, and their defining characteristic is that large and colorful dorsal horn.

The horn gradually tapers to a point, hence its thorn name.

The indigenous people of South America consider these edible since their spines are soft after molting.

Called a “living fossil,” this shark is the only extant representative of the family Mitsukurinidae, going back some 125 million years.

Goblin sharks are found all around the world, at depths greater than a hundred meters. The adults go even deeper.

While they pose no danger to humans, swimming at night and having this thing brush past you is going to terrify you beyond your imagination.

The Gobi Jerboa hails from the Gobi desert in China and Mongolia.

They were discovered just a hundred years ago by Glover Morrill Allen.

Researchers are unsure how many exist, though they are frequently encountered, so the conservation status has placed them at the “least concerned” status.

They have long ears and spindly, jumping legs, so the movement of this creature is quick and light.

The tail often drags on the ground since it is longer than their body.

Ask any third-grader about turtles, and you’re going to hear them say big shells.

However, there are some turtles like this pancake guy who don’t follow tradition.

Some of the largest extant freshwater turtles can grow as long as six feet, but other reports dispute that fact.

The length of the largest specimen was recorded at fifty-one inches, while the heaviest found was around five-hundred and fifty pounds.

These turtles are ambush predators, attacking crustaceans, mollusks, and fish. But they do snack on aquatic plants.

They spend ninety-five percent of life buried and motionless.

These undersea creatures are named after the legendary Yeti, a mythical creature thought to exist in the Himalayas.

And they exist in their own family, Kiwaidae, in the superfamily Chirostyloidea.

It looks like they exist in the cold, but they’re found around deep-sea hydrothermal vents and cold seeps. Ocean floor areas where hydrogen sulfide, methane, and other fluids collect into pools which are warmer than normal water temps.

The hairy, bristly appearance of those big forearms serve as protection and for finding food.

Found primarily in Liberia along with the Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, and occasionally Guinea, is a small antelope usually referred to as a banded duiker or stripped-back duiker.

They are thought to be one of the earliest members of the duiker family.

The black stripes that wrap around the top of its body gives it its name.

These duikers are small compared to other members of the antelope family, only growing to about three feet in length, and weighing less than fifty pounds.

Females are larger, most likely to support their longer gestation times.

Lampreys are horrible monsters that aren’t direct from your nightmares, but they may find their way to your area soon.

These are an ancient lineage of jawless fish of the order “Petromyzontiformes.”

The name comes from the Latin word lampetra, basically “stone licker.”

Lampreys include thirty-eight known living species, including five extinct versions.

Most of them are parasitic carnivores, feeding by boring into the flesh of other fish to suck blood.

Distasteful, but fewer than half of the species take to this track.

Babirusa, known as deer pigs, come from the Indonesian islands of Sulawesi, Togian, Sula, and Buru.

They are a genus of animals with four different species that have small but critical differences.

Differences include full-grown sizes, the amount of body hair, and the measurements of the skull and teeth.

The most noticeable feature has to be their long, curved tusks.

They develop from the sides of the mouth like normal teeth, but the tusks from the upper mandible pierce their flesh, making them look like horns.

Those tusks will even grow so long to the point that they’ll loop back toward the eyes.

This creature is where the designers of Pokemon got their inspiration for the first-gen creature Dewgong.

The real version doesn’t have a horn, and they can’t fire a jet of water to deal damage), but dugong are rare creatures.

Like the rest of the animals in its order, “Sirenia”, they have no dorsal fin or hind limbs.

Dugong are easily distinguished by that fluked, dolphin-like tail, and their unique skull and teeth.

The snout turns down sharply, helping them feed on benthic seagrass.

But unlike manatees, their molar teeth are simple and peg-like.

This lean beast hails from the Horn of Africa in the east, and is the sole member of the genus “Litocranius.”

They are known as the giraffe gazelle, receiving their first description from naturalist Victor Brooke in 1879.

Gerenuk are popular for its long, slender limbs, and its ability to stand on its hind legs to reach tasty high-up leaves.

The species is sexually dimorphic, so the males and females look different, just like peacocks and peahens.

The biggest difference are the horns, present only in males. The horns are lyre-shaped, reaching up to eighteen feet in length.

Fans of the classic Disney cartoon “Kim Possible,” will be familiar with this one.

Here is the naked mole-rat, a creature both cute and incredibly disturbing.

These burrowing rodents are the only species in the genus “Heterocephalus” in the rodent family.

Its unusual physical traits like being hairless, pain insensitivity, and strange ways of regulating heat make it especially suited for the harsh East African environment.

These, and the Damaraland mole-rat, are the only eusocial mammals in the world.

Bees are eusocial, so imagine a hive, but full of naked mole rats.

Called the Patagonian cavy, Patagonian hare, or dillaby, the Patagonian mara is a herbivorous rodent from the mara species.

A family that includes capybaras, beavers, and porcupines.

They are found in Argentina, growing to around thirty inches.

The feet are compressed, turning them hoof-like in design, so the mara is easy to see thanks to the white underside including their orange flanks and chins.

They are monogamous, though they will breed in large warrens along with other couples.

It looks like a fox, has ‘wolf’ in its name, but is neither. But it is the only species in the “Chrysocyon” genus.

The name means “Golden Dog” and it is the largest canine in South America.

Standing thirty-five inches at the withers – the shoulder blades of an animal that walks on four legs – it is pretty tall.

They live in the South American savanna, so they are an important part of the environment, especially in seed dispersal.

The maned wolf eats fruit, and then disperses the seed.

Their loud call is called “roar-barking,” but this creature communicates mostly through scents.

Australia is known for having really weird animals. Many of them are dangerous, but this colorful guy here doesn’t seem to be, since it’s only five millimeters across.

They’re just too fabulous to look at.

With the scientific name “Maratus Jactatus,” these spiders have a moniker that’s really whimsical: Sparklemuffin.

The moniker comes from the researcher that discovered it, Madeline Girard.

The males not only have a big, beautiful body to attract the ladies but they will coyly lift a leg to show the gals that they’re ready to go.

This lovely little creature is native to the Americas.

It’s a species of beetle that ranges in color from reddish-brown with little black spots to gold, and even metallic, hence the nickname “gold bug”.

They usually change color depending on the conditions, or during times of disturbance, like when it is touched by a researcher.

The blobfish is found in the deep waters off the coasts of Oceania, mostly mainland Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand.

It is a gelatinous mass with a density slightly less than water, so that allows it to float above the seafloor without having to swim as much.

They only appear droopy once they are taken out of the water and when pressure changes drastically.

Here is an incredibly rare mammal native to Central Africa, residing in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

But despite those zebra-like stripes, they are more closely related to giraffes.

The chocolate coat is a reddish-brown shade, contrasting with the white horizontal stripes and rings on the legs and white ankles.

The Satanic leaf-tailed gecko is found on the island of Madagascar.

That’s such an unusual name, and if you’re wondering where it’s from, this little gecko got it from the Belgian biologist George Boulenger in 1888.

The flattened tail looks like a leaf, helping the animal blend in with its environment.

This colorful bird is found within sub-Saharan Africa and the southern Arabian Peninsula.

The lilac-breasted roller sits in high trees and other lookout points where it can find prey at ground level.

They prefer open areas, and will usually stay away from treeless places.

Those bright feathers are conspicuous with their deep lilac breast feathers.

This is the miniature antelope that’s so adorable, they had to name it twice.

Found in the bushlands of southern and eastern Africa, dik-dik is the name for four different species of small antelope.

They are harmless herbivores with a name that comes from the unique alarm call the females commonly make, which sounds like a wheezing and whistling “dik-dik.”

This charismatic species are found in the southern and western coasts of Australia.

Leafy sea dragons have long leaflet protrusions coming from all over their body, serving as camouflage while looking cool at the same time.

They don’t have a special pouch characteristic of male seahorses, so they carry their eggs under their tail.

Atheris hispida, a venomous viper from Congo, Uganda, and Kenya, thrives in rainforests that offer plenty of flowering shrubs and bushes.

Those remarkably keeled dorsal scales have them being called “rough-scaled bush viper” and “spiny bush viper”.

They have a strong venom which causes severe bleeding from internal organs.

The amount and strength of the venom depends on each individual snake so be warned.

The Honduran white bat’s characteristic white fur, along with the tips of their individual hairs being gray and that peculiar leaf-shaped nose make them really cute.

Unfortunately, they are considered ‘Near Threatened’ on the International Union for Conservation of Nature scale.

These bats dwell in leaf ‘tents’ they create by cutting the side veins that extend out from the midrib of large leaves.

These animals are found in central China, and are a small species of deer characterized by the raised tuft of black hair on its forehead.

Like most kinds of deer, the males have fang-like canines.

These are tusk-like teeth used for fighting other males.

It is a timid, mainly solitary creature, who sometimes live in pairs.

They like areas with sheltered forests so they can find good cover.