The rarest animals of the world do not necessarily have to be strange and incomprehensible, often everyone is familiar with them, they simply do not know that these animals are on the verge of extinction. Although there are among them completely unusual creatures.
Such a section of the Red Book as the rarest animals includes the big panda, whose individuals are no more than 700 in the whole world. Most of the representatives of this species live in Chinese reserves and almost never occur in the wild. These black and white animals have already been recognized as a national treasure of China, so no one was surprised when a farmer who shot a panda and tried to sell his skin was sentenced to life imprisonment.
It is sad, but today the rare animals of Africa are representatives of the big cat family - cheetahs and lions. The threat to big cats is caused by human activity, which is why the historical population of these animals has decreased several times. The African savannah elephant is also going through difficult times, there are about 700 thousand representatives of this species, but it is still listed in the Red Book as in need of protection.
The rarest animals are found in Indonesia and on the island of New Guinea. Among them is prochidna - a strange beast that, like the platypus, has both a beak and thick hair. Another no less interesting animal is the Komodo monitor lizard or dragon, whose habitat is the Indonesian island of Komodo. These are giant poisonous lizards, which weigh on average 70 kg, although according to some reports some individuals reached 166 kg and had a length of more than 3 meters.
The rarest animals of the island of Madagascar are the night-time aye-aye lemurs, in nature there are only 20 individuals of this unique species. It is worth noting that all types of lemurs (there are about 20 of them) are endangered.
The sad fate of the last representative of the Galapagos tortoise, male George. This species can already be considered extinct, since there is only one 100-year-old individual in the world, and, despite a reward of $ 10,000, a female of this species could not be found.
The rarest animals of the island of Sumatra are Sumatran rhinos, the smallest representatives of this family, even compared to the white and black rhino. This species numbers about 300 individuals and continues to be ruthlessly exterminated due to a valuable horn, the cost of which reaches up to $ 30,000 per kilogram.
Another rare and rather unusual animal is the pangolin, which in appearance many take for a representative of the reptile world. But this is a mammal that is simply chained to scales. This animal is famous for the fact that in case of danger it turns into a ball, which is almost impossible to deploy due to incredibly strong muscles. In addition, it is quite dangerous to do this - the pangolin scales are so sharp that you can easily cut yourself.
This is a very small list of rare animals. In fact, there are many more: the Chinese river dolphin, northern wombat, mountain couscous, Ethiopian jackal, eastern mountain gorilla, and many other species that need human protection.