Yep, as weird as it’s going to sound, that creature pictured above is more related to a manatee than anything else and we know because of its weird nutsack.
Technically a hyrax, which we’re hoping at least three of you are now Googling to see how fuzzy they really are, is related to both manatees and elephants, you’ve probably noticed that both of these animals are massively different from our wuzzy little friend up there.
So how the hell are these things related you ask? Well, according to people way smarter than us, the answer lies with the manatee, according to them, the manatee evolved from a land-based, wading mammal that roamed the Earth some 60 million years ago. It’s believed that 4 amazingly distinct, but nonetheless kind-of similar animals evolved from the common ancestor the hyrax, elephant, aardvark and manatee. Yes, all of those animals are related somehow.
It just so happens that whereas everything else that evolved from that animals decided to keep chilling on land, the manatee decided it wanted to see how things would pan out in the ocean. Considering that manatee is universally known as the fat-ass cow of the sea, we’re guessing that has historically gone down as a poor decision on the manatee’s part.
One of the reasons scientists know that these four species are linked is partly due to their unusual man-nugget holders, all of the animals mentioned above have a fairly unique nutsack, but which we mean they don’t have one, their testicles instead sit inside their body, next to their kidneys, because that’s not weird at all.
The hyrax, like an elephant, has a teeny, tiny pair of tusks, however, more people (like us) tend to focus on the whole, “have no nutsack” thing.
