Our Mother Nature is often quite weird and the little long-eared jerboa is the perfect example of that. I mean, just look at this tiny creature. This adorable animal 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. Seriously, what kind of Pokemon is it? Never heard of it.
The long-eared jerboa is so mysterious, so weird, and so cute that people on the interwebs seem to be absolutely in love with this little creature.
The long-eared jerboa looks like a cross between a mouse, a rabbit, a pig, and a kangaroo
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 in to 3.5 in long while its tail is double this size. Apparently, the animal was first caught on film in the wild in 2007 during a Zoological Society of London expedition to the Gobi.
Besides, the animal has the largest ears relative to its size in the whole animal kingdom
The animal is native to the deserts of southern Mongolia and northwestern China. Since they're primarily nocturnal, they spend the day in underground burrows which they dug themselves. As for their diet, they mostly consume flying insects.
The lifespan of a long-eared jerboa is around 2 to 3 years.
Its ears measure around two-thirds of its body size
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.
Its tail is double the size of its body
And here's how people on the internet feel about this cutie
