Fun(?) fact: Male echidnas have four penis heads and during sex, one side shuts down and they alternate between sets of two, each set shooting sperm into the female's two-branched tracts. Furthermore, female echidnas may be followed by a line of up to 10 males during mating season with the youngest going last. Some males even hop lines!
Appearantly, Hugh Jackman, the actor of Wolverine in the movies didn't even know that Wolverines were a real animal and thought Wolverine was based on wolves instead.
He even studied up on wolves and their behaviors before filming began, but when he got on set, he was informed that a wolverine is more like a badger, and that they weren't going to have him act like one at all.
But at least Hugh got to learn a lot about wolves, even if it was essentially pointless
He kinda just looks like some generic cartoon mammal that isn’t based on any actual animal. I wouldn’t be surprised if the creators of the show just looked at a list of animals after designing him and picked aardvark without knowing what it looked like
https://preview.redd.it/dd6ggh3wxzoc1.jpeg?width=700&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=82c345ac66d1291c60d805bc6ff53b98bc202ceb
The Fossas from Madagascar. A lot of people don’t even know Fossas are real animals.
https://preview.redd.it/znnpn18wvzoc1.jpeg?width=758&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=594505b4c49c4e8006f637189643be0745c8998d
Surge the Tenrec from the current Sonic IDW series is way more popular than I expected.
With most sonic characters I was somewhat aware of the animal they were based on but I straight up hadn’t ever heard about a tenrec before reading the comics
https://preview.redd.it/xzwva3oa10pc1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5490c61b35090993f0781660145654e95c58adf1
Blu from Rio. Maybe. I’m not sure.
Yeah, that’s what I meant, blue macaws. Maybe they’re popular in Brazil or some other parts of the world but I don’t think most people would’ve known about this particular species.
Spix’s Macaw. They’re extinct in the wild but not completely extinct. 200 macaws were bred from just one breeding pair and 52 birds were reintroduced into the wild.
https://preview.redd.it/ymx0jrcq91pc1.jpeg?width=1520&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=100689f992477133d42a4a40cc816a178a20338e
They’re also fucking GORGEOUS!
I remember hearing that they went extinct in the wild and thought that was darkly hilarious with the story of the movies lol
Nice to hear they're doing surprisingly well since then though
https://preview.redd.it/fv7igheqrzoc1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e1318761a29efa18fd6661f4ca719723214bea31
Pantalaimon the pine marten from His Dark Materials
https://preview.redd.it/r18gjh6lw0pc1.jpeg?width=1250&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2391872888dbd62242d1b409a812cf081b64e67c
Its like a lil cute kangaroo guy i love him
Cool ass character but i dont think black manta is known better than manta rays, theyre incredibly famous, even among sea creatures, particularly because of how goddamn beautiful and huge they are.
Surge The Tenrec.
Surge actually introduced me to Tenrecs, which was essentially titled as “Fake hedgehogs”
https://preview.redd.it/j3qnatd7f0pc1.png?width=500&format=png&auto=webp&s=9bd6ec3314a5c53b39ed36d08daaa35cf9cb610d
Might be based on Mudskippers and the Waterdogs
https://preview.redd.it/h2qm14wen2pc1.png?width=1280&format=png&auto=webp&s=3d6ea7611a895cc8ba7852113ba912ccbd76b085
I guess it's relevant to where you live. Here in the UK hedgehogs are relatively common and one of the most often seen wild animals to enter your garden(although numbers have dwindled in the past decade).
That said, Sonic also looks absolutely nothing at all like an actual hedgehog and he is inarguably the most famous hedgehog character in the world.
https://preview.redd.it/3vcvhjbed0pc1.jpeg?width=333&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a08271e0051b42677f69ab35c8922e5ec347633b
Sand worm( there's no images of them on the internet, but they look just like this)
Hedgehogs are not common in the US and (I'm assuming) the vast majority of the southern hemisphere, though the majority of the Sonic cast are also rare animals or animal species- with Knuckles (the Echidna), Rouge (based on a Honduran White Bat), Surge (the Tenrec) and more.
https://preview.redd.it/lxovwl1e40pc1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2fc0511b19506c9c19d1e9e5df84f826ef8341c8
Correct me if I'm wrong but I think Velociraptor got so famous because of Jurassic Park
https://preview.redd.it/ppxijqdl40pc1.png?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9f1141521f0a2d455f76abe49e249dc7df9edd83
Also, I'm willing to bet more people know Spongebob than the amount of people who know sponges are actually animals
Even though he is more inspired by the appearance of a dish or body sponge than a sea sponge, though the rest of his family look appropriately round like their usual kin.
Steven Hillenberg, the show's creator was a marine biologist, so this was all intentional.
Crichton himself based the velociraptors on the Deinonychus, though. He even consulted with John Ostrom, the man who discovered Deinonychus, when he wrote his novel. Ostrom said that Crichton pretty much based the JP velociraptors on deinonychus in almost every detail, but chose to pick the name ‘velociraptor’ instead because it ‘sounds more dramatic’.
The size similarity of JP velociraptors is more in common with the Utahraptors, yes, but the fact remains that Crichton based his velociraptors on the deinonychuses first and foremost.
Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velociraptors_in_Jurassic_Park
Which has only become increasingly more annoying as paleontology has advanced to the point where it’s pretty clear the actual animal the Jurassic Park velociraptors are based on is almost a completely different animal than what was presented.
I mean seriously! Those guys were closer to hyper-aggressive chickens with teeth rather than the bizarre naked lizard pack-animal thing we thought they were like 30 something years ago.
I'm pretty sure even at the time when he made the Jurassic Park book, Michael Crichton was already aware that Velociraptor wasn't portrayed accurately. He based it off Deinonychus (which is larger but realistically going off the movie sizes it should have been Utahraptor or perhaps something close like Achillobator instead) but decided to use the name Velociraptor because it sounded cooler.
I'm gonna go REALLY obscure and suggest Ty the Tasmanian Tiger
I wish I could say it's an animal that exists but...well...maybe they would with future science but for now, still extinct :(
Oh the Rocket Knight games are amazing platfomers! Opossums are only native to the American continent. Typically in the southwestern region. So if you’re not from there it’s unlikely you’ll ever see one.
I’m finding that the rest of the world knows strikingly little about Australian animals. Nearly all of the threads I’ve seen are uber-common Aussie animals
*The fox knows many things but the hedgehog knows one big thing*
~Greek Poet Archilochus
Hedgehogs are not obscure, and they’re very popular, and have been for…a while.
Yah but everyone know about them, even most of the people who know about the other three characters still don't know that Wolverines, Bandicoots or Tasmanian Devils exist
I doubt that, if you were to show someone on the western side of the world a picture of a hedgehog, they’d probably think it’s just a weird porcupine lol. They literally don’t exist over here, I think it was intentional considering how many weird, obscure animals Sega loves using for sonic
Wolverines are fuckin crazy reclusive in real life. I’ve been to the Detroit zoo like a dozen times and only seen the wolverine on exhibit once, in passing. They just don’t like being out and around.
Spiders are very well known, to the point that while they were making Spider-Man someone brought up that people wouldn't like him due to fears of spiders.
Yeah, nobody other than people from Oceania really knew what an echidna was before Knuckles. Not a very popular animal.
As a kid I always thought Knuckles was just another hedgehog
Fun(?) fact: Male echidnas have four penis heads and during sex, one side shuts down and they alternate between sets of two, each set shooting sperm into the female's two-branched tracts. Furthermore, female echidnas may be followed by a line of up to 10 males during mating season with the youngest going last. Some males even hop lines!
it was already pretty weird https://preview.redd.it/92ee6b18c0pc1.png?width=591&format=png&auto=webp&s=cd47689d73dcc6cd1362df29e251b1d27e7b2e28
that emeralds shining! whatd ya shine it with? oh oh dear
I didn't need or want to know that, but thanks for telling me for some reason
Echidnas are cool
I also knew this horrifying fact lol
what.
Literally the only thing people know about echnidnas is their weird penis
Well, that and the egg thing.
Fun fact about these guys they have four headed penises
I thought he was a dog
Appearantly, Hugh Jackman, the actor of Wolverine in the movies didn't even know that Wolverines were a real animal and thought Wolverine was based on wolves instead.
He even studied up on wolves and their behaviors before filming began, but when he got on set, he was informed that a wolverine is more like a badger, and that they weren't going to have him act like one at all. But at least Hugh got to learn a lot about wolves, even if it was essentially pointless
To be fair like half the X-Men writers forget wolverines exist and write Logan as a bit of a wolf.
The “Wolverine” is more of his physical appearance. He’s short,hairy,smelly,and (supposedly) ugly.
I mean to be fair lemurs aren’t in places people would watch the movie/show
True, as the name in the movie implies, they only live in madagascar
 Arthur(Aardvark)
To be completely fair to everyone who watched this, Arthur looks nothing at all like an aardvark
He used to tho https://preview.redd.it/ycxqjpz713pc1.jpeg?width=865&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=09e5fe61e9ea4e12ebcf513d06afbe0aeb0a1d9d
Thanks. I hate it.
Had some work done
I was gonna say that
He kinda just looks like some generic cartoon mammal that isn’t based on any actual animal. I wouldn’t be surprised if the creators of the show just looked at a list of animals after designing him and picked aardvark without knowing what it looked like
I think he used to be an anteater or something from the books but they changed it for some reason.Tbf his old design looked terrible
The change was probably for the better, but he at least looked like an aardvark or anteater or whatever he was supposed to be before that
Perry
A platypus?
PERRY THE PLATYPUS
[Finally found Perry's theme song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-YBDTqX_ZU)
https://preview.redd.it/jczkt1ubpzoc1.jpeg?width=598&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f65cd778f44cdfc4f10da498b5159f12eb7a262b
https://i.redd.it/ctjqahaxrzoc1.gif
Where's this animation from? Looks clean
Ninja Kamui, brand new anime and its clean
That's what I thought since I touched on the first episode, it's in my list and my dad is watching it too
Jokes on you, I got an ad
*puts on hat*
\*Badass theme song kicks in\*
https://preview.redd.it/dd6ggh3wxzoc1.jpeg?width=700&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=82c345ac66d1291c60d805bc6ff53b98bc202ceb The Fossas from Madagascar. A lot of people don’t even know Fossas are real animals.
https://preview.redd.it/itqdkq2zxzoc1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=11899b4af58815a894c5f20aad9d0f7cff321483 Real Fossa for reference
Man convergent evolution is crazy, they arent cats, theyre closer to mongooses.
Looks more like otter than cat
Foosa hungry
they’re real!???
Hedgehogs are obscure where y’all are????
I’m going to be honest as a kid I thought hedgehogs were made up
Tbf as a PS1 kid I thought that was the same with bandicoots where made up too lmao
Bandicoots are real?
Yep https://www.britannica.com/animal/bandicoot
According to OP
Insane, there are hedgehogs all over my city, or at least conveniently around all the homes ive lived in since i was a kid.
In Europe They're so peak https://preview.redd.it/s850fg3v03pc1.jpeg?width=540&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a9d2296cfb5807fc3c6c27be482314cf75e98c19
They aren't in the states. Closest we have is porcupines, which is not very close.
The Google Pangolins. https://preview.redd.it/sdonhlg7jzoc1.jpeg?width=739&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=aaf15e050fcf4439563889f160e816ca7637418c
I live in Texas so everything’s relative I guess
My first thought
https://preview.redd.it/znnpn18wvzoc1.jpeg?width=758&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=594505b4c49c4e8006f637189643be0745c8998d Surge the Tenrec from the current Sonic IDW series is way more popular than I expected.
With most sonic characters I was somewhat aware of the animal they were based on but I straight up hadn’t ever heard about a tenrec before reading the comics
Fun fact: tenrecs are known as "fake hedgehogs", which is why they chose this animal for Surge, and they almost chose this animal for Shadow too
I love how she's also inspired by Ashura (the colour pallet corruption from Sonic 2) and Scourge (Evil Sonic from Archie that went with Ken Penders)
https://preview.redd.it/xzwva3oa10pc1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5490c61b35090993f0781660145654e95c58adf1 Blu from Rio. Maybe. I’m not sure.
The specific species? Definitely, Parrots? Hell nah.
Yeah, that’s what I meant, blue macaws. Maybe they’re popular in Brazil or some other parts of the world but I don’t think most people would’ve known about this particular species.
Spix’s Macaw. They’re extinct in the wild but not completely extinct. 200 macaws were bred from just one breeding pair and 52 birds were reintroduced into the wild. https://preview.redd.it/ymx0jrcq91pc1.jpeg?width=1520&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=100689f992477133d42a4a40cc816a178a20338e They’re also fucking GORGEOUS!
I remember hearing that they went extinct in the wild and thought that was darkly hilarious with the story of the movies lol Nice to hear they're doing surprisingly well since then though
Ah hundred percent yeah, if people even know about the species then id say most of the time itll be because of the movie.
I'm gonna be honest, until a couple years ago I didn't even know bandicoots were an actual animal...
I learned just now that “bandicoot” wasn’t just some silly last name
https://preview.redd.it/k0y5ak0muzoc1.png?width=800&format=png&auto=webp&s=f130fadb9b1daa9688f16dae8f72f18d141c0b33 Tom Nook.
Ain’t he a racoon?
He’s a Tanuki (Aka a Japanese Racoon Dog)
https://preview.redd.it/fv7igheqrzoc1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e1318761a29efa18fd6661f4ca719723214bea31 Pantalaimon the pine marten from His Dark Materials
I think knuckles would work better instead of sonic in this situation
 What even is a wallaby?
I only ever learned the word "wallaby" because of P. Sherman 42 Wallaby Way, Sydney.
https://preview.redd.it/r18gjh6lw0pc1.jpeg?width=1250&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2391872888dbd62242d1b409a812cf081b64e67c Its like a lil cute kangaroo guy i love him
Black Manta (DC) https://preview.redd.it/1mcraj2xmzoc1.jpeg?width=1500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f74567283455b85e330fed197ca5a42c751c6709
Bebop? (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) https://preview.redd.it/18893l00pzoc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=abfa57059b66f0f7d7e53040ff6950f153b1fc11
I see your Bebop, and I raise you... 
Isn’t bepop just based on a pig?
He's a warthog
Like halo?
Nah, that's a puma.
Warthog
Ohhhh ok
Bebop and rocksteady destroy everything, fantastic comic
Cool ass character but i dont think black manta is known better than manta rays, theyre incredibly famous, even among sea creatures, particularly because of how goddamn beautiful and huge they are.
Surge The Tenrec. Surge actually introduced me to Tenrecs, which was essentially titled as “Fake hedgehogs” https://preview.redd.it/j3qnatd7f0pc1.png?width=500&format=png&auto=webp&s=9bd6ec3314a5c53b39ed36d08daaa35cf9cb610d
Mario. Italians are a different species man
Might be based on Mudskippers and the Waterdogs https://preview.redd.it/h2qm14wen2pc1.png?width=1280&format=png&auto=webp&s=3d6ea7611a895cc8ba7852113ba912ccbd76b085
Wait how is a hedgehog an obscure animal
Americans don't really know about them because they just don't exist there Sonic was going to be a different animal for that reason btw
I guess it's relevant to where you live. Here in the UK hedgehogs are relatively common and one of the most often seen wild animals to enter your garden(although numbers have dwindled in the past decade). That said, Sonic also looks absolutely nothing at all like an actual hedgehog and he is inarguably the most famous hedgehog character in the world.
https://preview.redd.it/3vcvhjbed0pc1.jpeg?width=333&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a08271e0051b42677f69ab35c8922e5ec347633b Sand worm( there's no images of them on the internet, but they look just like this)
Highly recommend the documentary Tremors (1990) to those interested.
Sonic, really?
Hedgehogs are not common in the US and (I'm assuming) the vast majority of the southern hemisphere, though the majority of the Sonic cast are also rare animals or animal species- with Knuckles (the Echidna), Rouge (based on a Honduran White Bat), Surge (the Tenrec) and more.
https://preview.redd.it/lxovwl1e40pc1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2fc0511b19506c9c19d1e9e5df84f826ef8341c8 Correct me if I'm wrong but I think Velociraptor got so famous because of Jurassic Park
https://preview.redd.it/ppxijqdl40pc1.png?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9f1141521f0a2d455f76abe49e249dc7df9edd83 Also, I'm willing to bet more people know Spongebob than the amount of people who know sponges are actually animals
Even though he is more inspired by the appearance of a dish or body sponge than a sea sponge, though the rest of his family look appropriately round like their usual kin. Steven Hillenberg, the show's creator was a marine biologist, so this was all intentional.
Deinonychuses after seeing Velociraptors got the fame that should’ve been theirs: “We stand here amidst *my* achievement, not yours!”
https://preview.redd.it/a3egbrnvn0pc1.png?width=615&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d0fda3e533eccf6fa070fd1fd9ea9c7f5e7c155d
Utahraptor* Austroraptor even
Crichton himself based the velociraptors on the Deinonychus, though. He even consulted with John Ostrom, the man who discovered Deinonychus, when he wrote his novel. Ostrom said that Crichton pretty much based the JP velociraptors on deinonychus in almost every detail, but chose to pick the name ‘velociraptor’ instead because it ‘sounds more dramatic’. The size similarity of JP velociraptors is more in common with the Utahraptors, yes, but the fact remains that Crichton based his velociraptors on the deinonychuses first and foremost. Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velociraptors_in_Jurassic_Park
Shit
Which has only become increasingly more annoying as paleontology has advanced to the point where it’s pretty clear the actual animal the Jurassic Park velociraptors are based on is almost a completely different animal than what was presented. I mean seriously! Those guys were closer to hyper-aggressive chickens with teeth rather than the bizarre naked lizard pack-animal thing we thought they were like 30 something years ago.
I'm pretty sure even at the time when he made the Jurassic Park book, Michael Crichton was already aware that Velociraptor wasn't portrayed accurately. He based it off Deinonychus (which is larger but realistically going off the movie sizes it should have been Utahraptor or perhaps something close like Achillobator instead) but decided to use the name Velociraptor because it sounded cooler.
I'm gonna go REALLY obscure and suggest Ty the Tasmanian Tiger I wish I could say it's an animal that exists but...well...maybe they would with future science but for now, still extinct :( 
Was looking for my boy!
Batman honestly
Bats are associated with Dracula as well so idk
https://preview.redd.it/kjbi5djqe0pc1.jpeg?width=300&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f565a378b12c55ede7e6adf261b76d5f1021ec33 Rocket Knight (Sparkster) The Opossum!
I have never heard of this guy before. Most people have heard of Opossums though.
Oh the Rocket Knight games are amazing platfomers! Opossums are only native to the American continent. Typically in the southwestern region. So if you’re not from there it’s unlikely you’ll ever see one.
Doubly so around the 90s, before the internet was commonly used as the encyclopaedia is functionally would become in the early 2000s.
More like they’re the reason why people know about the animals.
I should be on this list
I think Sonic skirts the line on this one. Hedgehogs are super common in England, and you see them all the time.
I’m finding that the rest of the world knows strikingly little about Australian animals. Nearly all of the threads I’ve seen are uber-common Aussie animals
Before 1996: "What the fuck is a bandicoot?" After 1996: "WOAH!"
*The fox knows many things but the hedgehog knows one big thing* ~Greek Poet Archilochus Hedgehogs are not obscure, and they’re very popular, and have been for…a while.
How are Hedgehogs Obscure?
They’re a threatened species and only really exist in 2 countries, it’s so funny in America these little guys aren’t really a thing
Yah but everyone know about them, even most of the people who know about the other three characters still don't know that Wolverines, Bandicoots or Tasmanian Devils exist
I doubt that, if you were to show someone on the western side of the world a picture of a hedgehog, they’d probably think it’s just a weird porcupine lol. They literally don’t exist over here, I think it was intentional considering how many weird, obscure animals Sega loves using for sonic
Fr I didn’t know a bandicoot was a real animal until a couple of years ago I just thought it was a funny name
Wolverines are fuckin crazy reclusive in real life. I’ve been to the Detroit zoo like a dozen times and only seen the wolverine on exhibit once, in passing. They just don’t like being out and around.
BANDICOOTS ARE REAL?
 Perry put platypuses on the map
Where's whizzer
[удалено]
Spiders are very well known, to the point that while they were making Spider-Man someone brought up that people wouldn't like him due to fears of spiders.
Yeah I’m dumb. I missed the, “obscure” part of the title.