The top 3 cutest wild animals 😎 are presented here although this is very subjective which means everyone has their own ideas. But a quick search of the internet revealed that these three come up time and again. Roger Federer had a very pleasant encounter with a quokka when he was visiting Australia (see below the infographic). It was taken on Rottnest Island of Perth, Australia and published in The Daily Telegraph on Friday, 29 December 2017. Federer was taking part in the annual Hopman indoor mixed doubles event. He clearly loved the experience of meeting and interacting with probably the world’s cutest wild animals. Although this little fella was semi-tame, I think. I suspect too that they have very amiable characters making them predisposed to being tamed.
Here is the infographic:
Quokka
Here’s the great man with his new buddy. Click this link to read about it.
The image in the infographic comes from this video – isn’t he/she cute?
As expected, quokkas are friendly and approachable and as such they are often approached by tourists which probably makes them more friendly and more approachable. They show little fear of human contact and apparently, they will hop onto people. They often pose with humans for selfies. They are, of course, very photogenic.
The good thing about the quokka is that they are both cute of character and cute in their appearance.
When selecting this threesome, I noticed that many of the other cute animals weren’t actually not so cute in terms of their character. To be in the top three they’ve got to be both.
21-year-old Campbell Jones was riding in Rottnest, Australia when he encountered perhaps the friendliest quokka on the planet. The quokka followed him as he went to get his bike. He chased after him and then jumped on him as if to say: ‘Come back!’ The picture below is from his Go Pro camera. You can see the friendly quokka smile as he is delighted to see his new friend.
Quokkas are in the macropod family and in that family, they join kangaroos and wallabies. They are herbivores and mainly nocturnal. They are found on small islands off the coast of Western Australia particularly Rottnest Island which is just off Perth and also on Bald Island near Albany.
They are in isolated scattered populations in forests and coastal heath between Perth and Albany. They weigh between 5.5 pounds and 11 pounds which is around the weight of a domestic cat.
Red panda
This super-cute mammal weighs between 3.2 kg and 15 kg (7.1 pounds and 33.1 pounds). They are good climbers because they have flexible joints and semi-retractile claws which are curved inwards to help grip trees.
The two recognised subspecies are the Himalayan and the Chinese red panda. They live in coniferous forest and also temperate broadleaf and mixed forests. They like steep slopes with dense bamboo cover and which are near water sources. They are mainly arboreal which means they mainly live in trees and and are solitary.
Their evolution stretches back to around 25-18 million years ago. They know this because they found extinct fossil relatives in Eurasia and North America.
Arctic fox
This super-looking fox is also known as the snow fox, polar fox and white fox. As expected, they are very nicely adapted to cold environments and to living in snowy landscapes with their pure white coat and large and very fluffy tail. I’m told that most of them don’t live past their first year of life whereas others can exceptionally live to 11 years of age.
They are between 18-27 inches in length (body and head). Their body is more rounded than other foxes in order to contain body heat. In other words, their body shape reduces the surface area to volume ratio and this is enhanced when they curl up tightly and tuck their legs and head under the body and behind their furry tails.
They feed on small animals such as lemmings, voles and other rodents and also hares, birds and carrier.They can endure a temperature range of around a hundred degrees Celsius from coldest to hottest.
