we saw in the first part, 6 to 4 places of the top six "weird hairy animals", let's continue with places 3 to 1 & see the winner!!

kiwa hirsuta or the yeti crab & its silky blond setae

kiwa hirsuta or (as its discoverers dubbed) the "yeti lobster" or "yeti crab", is a crustacean & decapod discovered only two years ago in the south pacific ocean. it's approximately six inches (15 cm) long, & is distinguished for the quantity of silky blond setae resembling to fur covering its thoracic legs & claws.

k. hirsuta was discovered in march 2005 in monterey, california, by a monterey bay aquarium research institute group organised by robert vrijenhoek, using a submarine. the discovery was announced on the 7th of march, 2006.

it was found 900 miles (1,500 km) south of easter island in the south pacific, at a depth of 7,200 feet (2,200 m), living on hydrothermal vents along the pacific-antarctic ridge.

based on both morphology and molecular data, the species was deemed to form a new genus and family (kiwaidae). the animal has strongly reduced eyes that lack pigment, & is thought to be blind. the 'hairy' pincers of the yeti crab contain filamentous bacteria, which the animal probably uses to detoxify poisonous minerals from the water emitted by the hydrothermal vents where it lives. or alternatively, it may feed on the bacteria, although it is thought to be a general carnivore. its diet also consists of green algae and small shrimp.

outside the scientific literature, the kiwa hirsuta is often called "furry lobster", in fact it's not a true lobster but is more closely related to squat lobsters & hermit crabs. the term "furry lobster" is more commonly used for the genus palinurellus.

more details on wikipedia - k. hirsuta

sloth & the legend of ultimate laziness

sloth is a mammal belonging to the folivora (called also phyllophaga) suborder under the order pilosa. it lives in central and south america, mainly in cecropia trees.

sloths are omnivores. they may eat insects, small lizards and carrion, but their diet consists mostly of buds, tender shoots, and leaves.

sloths have made extraordinary adaptations to an arboreal browsing lifestyle. Leaves, their main food source, provide very little energy or nutrition and do not digest easily: sloths have very large, specialized, slow-acting stomachs with multiple compartments in which symbiotic bacteria break down the tough leaves.

a well-fed sloth's body-weight in its two-thirds consists of the contents of its stomach, and the digestive process can take over a month to complete. even so, leaves provide little energy, and sloths deal with this by a range of economy measures: they have very low metabolic rates (less than half of that expected for a creature of their size), and maintain low body temperatures when active (86 to 93 degrees fahrenheit or 30 to 34 celsius), and lower temperatures when resting.

more details on wikipedia - sloth

& the winner is ... angora rabbit ... ohh myyy god!!!!

click to enlarge even more ;)

the angora rabbit is a variety of domestic rabbit, one of the oldest. its origin is in ankara, turkey, along with the angora cat and angora goat. the rabbits were popular pets with french royalty in the mid 1700s, and spread to other parts of europe by the end of the century. they first appeared in the united states in the early 1900s.

angora rabbits are mostly calm and docile but should be handled carefully. they are largely bred for their silky and soft long wool, which may be removed by shearing or plucking (gently pulling loose wool). because they are prone to hairballs, they should be groomed everyday or every other day to prevent the fiber from matting and felting on the rabbit.

there are many individual breeds of angora rabbits, including, french, german, giant, english, satin, chinese, swiss, finnish, etc.

more details on wikipedia - angora rabbit

to see the first part & other three hairy animals go here: some of most strange heary creatures - part 1