Today’s What Animal Is It? is a creature that few people have heard of, and even fewer have seen. In my opinion, it’s one of the strangest animals in Europe and the last in an evolutionary line that, long ago, was fairly common and widespread. But what exactly is it? The fact that The Nature Nook has turned January into ‘Mole Month’ should give you a clue as to what this animal might be…
In 1831, an Australian settler named George Fletcher Moore chased a strange animal through a west Australian woodland. It was small and reddish-brown, with white stripes across its hindquarters, a pointed muzzle, and a long bushy tail.
For a long time, it was believed that there were no venomous crustaceans in the world. Venom is common in many arthropods, including spiders, scorpions, centipedes and wasps, but of the approximately 70,000 species of crustacean, none were known to be venomous.
