Several cute domesticated animals, like the silkie chicken and the Angola rabbit, are bred for their adorable fluffiness. However, you may be surprised to find that quite a few animals have naturally developed fur that is well regarded when it comes to their fluffiness.
Here’s a list of fluffy fauna from around the globe.
List of 20 Fluffy Animals that Live in the Wild
1. Alpaca
The alpaca is a South American camelid known for its fluffy wool. These cute creatures are pretty docile and are sometimes kept as pets or bred for the fibers on their bodies.
2. Arctic Fox
As the name might indicate, these foxes live in the Arctic and have developed a thick fur coat as insulation. This fluffy coat also acts as effective camouflage and grows longer in winter.
3. Black-and-White Ruffed Lemur
These lemurs have fluffy fur covering their entire bodies. The most striking feature of this Madagascan lemur is its fluffy ears and the white fur that looks like a beard extending from one side of its head to another.
4. Brown Woolly Monkey
These monkeys live in the upper Amazon basin, encompassing parts of Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. Their entire bodies are covered in thick fur, except for their face.
5. Chinchilla
Chinchillas are South American rodents known for their soft fur that is pleasant to touch. This once led to over-exploitation for fur coats, but nowadays, those specimens are reared separately on farms.
6. Common Wombat
The common wombat is a marsupial endemic to the southeast part of Australia. It is covered entirely with brown fur, except for its nose, which is the only way to distinguish it from the hairy-nosed wombat.
7. Fisher
Fishers are rodents spread across Canada and the northern United States. Their fur remains dense and glossy in winter and becomes mottled in summer. Males have coarser fur than females.
8. Giant Panda
The giant panda is well known for its black and white fur. A native of China, this bear’s coat acts as camouflage in summer and winter.
9. Harp Seal
These adorable earless seals are known for two coats – a snowy white one as juveniles and a gray one with a black spot on the back as adults. Harp seals swim in the Arctic and the northernmost part of the Atlantic oceans.
10. Japanese Macaque
Also called the snow monkey, or Nihonzaru in its native Japan, this monkey lives in places with temperatures as low as −20 °C. To survive, it has developed a brown-grey fur coat that covers its entire body except for its bright red face.
11. Japanese Serow
This is a small bovid with a long, woolly coat. The fur is variable in color, with observed morphs including black, black with a white spot on the back, dark brown, and whitish. Only the fur around the neck is white in all specimens.
12. Olympic Marmot
The largest marmot species in North America, the Olympic marmot has a double-layered coat with coarse outer hair and soft underfur. Its coat is dark gray as an infant, which changes over time to a grayish brown as they grow. As an adult, they have a dark brown color which becomes darker over time. The muzzle and area around the eyes are white.
13. Pallas’s Cat
A resident of China, Mongolia, and Russia, the Pallas’s cat is a small cat known for its exquisite fur. It is light grey with yellow ochre streaks and has black stripes on its back.
14. Raccoon Dog
The raccoon dog, so named because of its raccoon-like appearance, lives in parts of eastern Asia. They grow long fur in the winter, with two parts – a dense underlayer and a coarse outer layer.
15. Red Fox
The largest of all the true foxes, the red fox lives across the three northern continents – Asia, Europe, and North America. Its body is covered with bright red fur, though several different morphs also exist, and it has a fluffy tail. During winter, the fox’s fur becomes dense and silky.
16. Red Panda
Completely unrelated to the giant panda, the red panda is a resident of the eastern Himalayas and southwestern China. They have a fluffy fur coat that is dorsally reddish brown and ventrally black.
17. Siberian Flying Squirrel
Found throughout Europe, this flying squirrel has a fuzzy grey coat that unfurls into a patagium to help them glide.
18. Silky Anteater
The smallest of all known anteaters, the silky anteater has a coat of dense greyish-yellow fur that is silky smooth to the touch. This anteater is assumed to live in silk cotton trees due to a passing resemblance to a silk pod. This anteater lives in Central and South America as well as in Mexico.
19. Snow Leopard
These leopards live in extremely harsh snowy areas. To survive, they have developed thick fur that even covers their paws. Its fur is a whitish-grey, with black spots on the head and neck region and rosettes on the body.
20. Venezuelan Poodle Moth
Named due to its physical resemblance to a poodle, this moth is covered with white fur, making it one of the fluffiest moths.
FAQs
Which animals have fluffy tails? Red foxes, red pandas, giant anteaters, ring-tailed lemurs, tufted ground squirrels, etc.
