The eastern long-necked turtle almost looks like something straight out of a mythological story. For the most part, it’s a regular turtle, except that its long neck and incredibly alluring eyes make it look like a hybrid between a snake and a turtle. It’s able to bend its neck in various angles and is speculated as being able to bend and look 180 degrees backward.
You can mostly find these in east Australia, although they have also been imported to various other countries. These reptiles are generally black in color and eat mostly insects and small animals. They are able to emit a foul-smelling fluid from their musk glands when threatened, which gave them the nickname “stinkers”.
Indian Gharial
The Indian gharial is a unique crocodile that looks a lot more like a duck than an alligator. It reaches up to 20 feet in length and is mostly recognized by its unique snout, which makes it look like it might quack at any moment. This ancient beast is believed to have evolved more than 40 million years ago but is currently in critically endangered condition.
While we're poking a bit of fun at its appearance, it's important to note that this crocodile can easily hunt and kill a human if it wants to. You can find these carnivores mostly around the northern Indian subcontinent. Its main reason for being near extinction is a loss of habitat and food supply, and humans are rushing to fix this before it goes fully extinct.
Spike-nosed Tree Frog
The spike-nosed tree frog, also unofficially known as the Pinocchio frog, often looks like a frog with the face of a mosquito. It can be found mostly in the Foja Mountains of Indonesia and proved to be a massive shock to the biologists who found it.
These frogs were discovered back in 2008, but there is still much we don't know about them. Their unusually long noses can inflate and deflate when calling, much like other frog species and the skin pocket on their lower jaw.
Wrinkle-Faced Bat
One of the most bizarre-looking species of bats that can be found in Central America is the wrinkle-faced bat. It mostly looks like a regular bat, except that it also has a very wrinkled face. These can be found in various Central American forests from Belize to Colombia, Costa Rica, and other locations.
Wrinkle-faced bats mostly eat fruits, although their full dietary range is currently unknown. They secrete a weird odor from their chin to attract their female mates, which is just another quirk that makes them so unique and bizarre at the same time.
Greater Sage-Grouse
The greater sage-grouse is a unique bird found in western North America. It got its name from having large, white, beard-like feathers and a general exotic appearance of wisdom. The bird uses its two large air sacs to attract females, by inflating them and making weird popping sounds.
The greater sage grouse is the largest grouse in America and tends to stay in one area without doing too much traveling. There are about 1,700 adult greater sage-grouses left in the United States. This bird has lost much of its population in recent decades due to habitat loss and is currently under threatened or near-threatened status according to various organizations.