Sometimes our Mother Nature is quite weird and below we have the perfect example of that.
Just take a look at this tiny creature. Meet the little long-eared jerboa, an adorable animal that has a mouse-like body, rabbit-like ears, a pig’s snout, and back legs that look like a miniature model of a kangaroo’s. We’re sure that you never heard of it.
This animal is so mysterious and weird, and at the same time so cute that people on the interwebs seem to be absolutely in love with this little creature. The long-eared jerboa is a rare, nocturnal, mouse-like rodent with legs for days, exceptionally large ears, and a long tail. The body of the animal is around 2.8 into 3.5 in long while its tail is double this size. The animal was first caught on film in the wild in 2007 during a Zoological Society of London expedition to the Gobi.
The animal is native to the deserts of southern Mongolia and northwestern China. They spend the day in underground burrows which they dug themselves, they mostly consume flying insects, and their lifespan is around 2 to 3 years.
Because of its large, kangaroo-like back legs, it can jump pretty high. The front legs are relatively small, and it doesn’t use them for getting around. “Jerboas have very erratic locomotion, adopting a zigzag trajectory, and can jump several feet both vertically and horizontally, even though they are usually about the size of your fist,” Talia Yuki Moore, a Harvard graduate student studying locomotion in three jerboa species, told National Geographic.
Also, here’s people’s reaction to this cutie: