Results of Our Weekly Readers' Poll

A week ago we asked you-- our very attractive, highly intelligent and unbelievably nerdy readers --to tell us what your favoritest animal in the world is. We received a flood of responses, and we wanted to show some pictures of the highlights.

Adam likes the Ai, a maned three-toed sloth that lives in the jungles of South America because they are "stupid-looking"

i-f73665bbfd96c9f334fea90e2f91c1fd-Favorite 1 - Three-Toed Sloth, Ai.jpg

Meg has a fondness for...

...saiga antelopes

i-dca4fd19e61fd879a745348664e16c6d-Favorite 3 - Saiga Antelope.jpg

Jonathan, yawn, likes killer whales

i-d279e7259a51cbc6c0daebc46907e52f-Favorite 5 - Orcas.jpg

J-Dog believes lobe-finned fish to be "dizz-own" in his "hizz-ouse"

i-003b55e859f27094fddcc566af85b410-Favorite 6 - Coelacanth.jpg

Who knew? Jenbug likes sloths and hyenas!

i-21c1354f193a19922318ee91e143cc40-Favorite 17 - Sloth.jpg

i-f758fd502b9a0ca7fd3581595c03b4d9-Favorite 18 - Hyena.jpg

Anne-Marie Hodge, fittingly, likes the long-beaked echidna.

i-733bd238594596ea5bf00f9cdd20f85c-Favorite 15 - Echidna.jpg

Meirav goes gaga for cookie cutter or cigar sharks. Great picture, I found, isn't it?

i-9eb91ad52cfdc5fbe1c0a5e658253eb7-Favorite 2 - Cookie Cutter Shark.jpg

HP would like to give an hj to a jaguarundi

i-b8603d64a34622e8e2919c493544d8db-Favorite 4 - Jaguarundi.jpg

In a stunning turn of events, another antelope made the list, coming from Bovi, who loves nyalas

i-020aec07dfd2f72bf543a368d849c9bb-Favorite 7 - Nyala Antelope.jpg

Christopher Taylor, a card-carrying weirdo, things embioptera are "cute"

i-8edb03421c70989f2c8b0bead91807c2-Favorite 8 - Embioptera.jpg

Gerry L. voted for a chimpanzee. Thanks a lot for that, Ger, it's worked out so great.

i-96e3ab9bfc78e7f5b3c55d5bd74358b9-Favorite 8 - Chimpanzee.jpg

Eugen and milkshake completely broke the rules and voted for the non-existent Mongolian death worm or Olgoi Khorkhoi

i-707e3b818f8c4482c7c31d895c25b627-Favorite 10 - Mongolian Death Worm.jpg

Our boy, Will Goring, came out swinging with the Stomatopod or mantis shrimp

i-95c0d2fc7c9055cdb470cc0f15824b4c-Favorite 11 - Mantis Shrimp.jpg

Myles first picked puffins...

i-972e35910862afcbbde85f8ebb20706f-Favorite 12 - Puffin.jpg

Then llamas...

i-46d358ae85fe10194373e37cb81bbae4-Favorite 13 - Llama.jpg

Then hedgehogs...

i-4d25e306fd1f2974f4219b20e07274fe-Favorite 14 - Hedgehogs.jpg

Make up your freaking mind.

Finally, Dior went with the alligator. When he grows up he wants to be a fireman!

i-be518e44a328b16540d3155bada74ba9-Favorite 19 - Alligator.jpg

We want to thank everyone who responded and encourage more. Who's got the weirdest favorite animal? Betcha no matter what yours is, Andrew and I got you beat!

More like this

Ok, Bleiman boys, why is it "fitting" that I like the echidna? I have no prickly spines...at least not since that cream was approved for over the counter use... =P

Hahaha,

Yeah, I was wondering if you would react to that! The answer is.... No reason. Just made it up.

Benny

hmm. so many to choose from! Tardigrades? Deep-sea goose barnacles? The Scale-mail Snail? Box Jellyfish (24 eyes, no brain, kill you horribly anyway)? Phorid flies? I can't limit it down!

Polypterus! I loved both my Polypterus endlicheri and my Polypterus sp. "Koliba" quite a bit.

And pretty much every cephalopod.

OH MY GOD I FORGOT NEOCERTODUS FORSTERI

I was going to say tardigrades, but Drhoz! already mentioned them. So I'll have to go for my other favourite, Melibe leonina. Although hermit crabs are cool, too.

Olgoi Khorkhoi is a completely legit submission - we were instructed to nominate our favorite animal "just like that cute little zombie that likes turtless." A bloodcurdling apparition from Gobi desert qualifies IMHO.

(It would break rules if I nominated Yeti. Because Yeti is not actualy evil - even if its parenting methods seem severe to many)

By milkshake (not verified) on 06 Dec 2007 #permalink

Olgoi Khorkhoi is a completely legit submission - we were instructed to nominate our favorite animal "just like that cute little zombie that likes turtless." A bloodcurdling apparition from Gobi desert qualifies IMHO.

(It would break rules if I nominated Yeti. Because Yeti is not actualy evil - even if its parenting methods seem severe to many)

By milkshake (not verified) on 06 Dec 2007 #permalink

I'm not sure just what "an hj" is, but HP stands for "hand pob."

The North American jaguarundi subspecies are currently endangered by habitat loss, so I'm not sure an artificial insemination program would help. Still, if it will advance The Course of Science....

That's a beautiful portrait you found. Such a handsome cat. I was looking for a photo that would show its dachsund-like body plan, but I couldn't find one online.

Oh man, I can't believe I totally forgot babyrusa!

They're so WEIRD-looking! Or at least to me, with my very provincial upbringing on North American and African animals.

I have an unreasonable fondness for the common North American woodchuck, simply because a few of them live in the ravine behind my house. But my very favorite animal has to be vampyroteuthis infernalis, the adorable and aptly-named Vampire Squid (from Hell).

My daughter loves okapis. No one in her first-grade class has any idea what they are. But she dragged all of her buddies to the pen to see them on the last field trip. "Is that some type of zebra?!?" And at the Houston Zoo, where there was only one, she insisted on trying to give the poor thing her stuffed animal okapi so that it wouldn't be lonely.

Great post... thanks for the pics!

I am a cat lover! All the way from the tiny little kitten to the biggest tigers and lions! Since it makes for more pleasant dreams about petting them I guess the kitten wins since getting my hand and arm back in one piece is a real priority!
Dave Briggs :~)

By Dave Briggs (not verified) on 06 Dec 2007 #permalink

Much as one may think our President is a liar, a failure, a jerk, a dummy, whatever, posting his picture herein under the 'chimpanzee' demeans the country, the OFFICE of the President of the US, and this website. Stick to animals - leave the political commentary to the mainstream, left-leaning, Bush-hating press.

I do love nearly all animals, each of which plays an interesting role in some ecosystem or another. But I have to admit, there are some critters that just make themselves so unlikeable that I can't abide them. Mosquitoes, for example, I would gladly do without. The same goes for the ubiquitous and universally unpleasant Common Rightwing Troll (tedious microcephalous), a rather pathetic creature with no redeeming qualities that I've ever been able to discern...

Oh I in no way was dismissing the fascinating fauna of the grand old US and A, but since most of the second-hand textbooks I had as a child focused on North America I felt that my knowledge of animals was just more provincial that way. When I'd read about numbats and lemurs in Ranger Rick I would dream of a place where I could walk outside my house and view a wealth of non-placental mammals and monotremes.

jenbug, i think we may have grown up in the same gharial exhibit. do you have a rich uncle who'll buy the zoobooks franchise for us and allow us to revitalize the brand?

lol@Bob. XD

Aww, you shoulda shown the saiga's crazy nose-tubes. =3 Those things are so weirdly awesome.

Also, you should check out yellow-footed rock wallabies. They're another of my favorite species, and they have the most beautiful coloring of all the macropods.

My favorite is the Coconut Crab. ;) Being from MD, I've gotta show some love to flesh-eating monster crabs.

Well I have an uncle who drives a big white cadillac with gold trim, but I think his preferred method of earth revitilization is spitting his 'chaw' on the neighbor's lawn. He's more of the Teddy Roosevelt kind of naturalist: 'I want to save the land so I have somewhere to hunt.'

I only had that one free issue of Zoobooks about elephants, which I would get every four months or so. But I LOVED it.

Early European explorers discovering an elephant skull and giving birth to the Cylops legend = love!

No love for the slender-horned gazelle? Story of my life!

All these pictures are beyond cool-thanks to all of you for making my day. It wasn't going so great- so I decided to do someresearch on some wildlife I saw on tv last nite. I was hunting for a photo of the saiga antelope. AND...I came upon these really great photos and comments.. So I signed up. Thanks again to all who took part- you fixed my day, and made me aware of this cool site.

By Catherine (not verified) on 31 Jul 2009 #permalink

ha-ha-ha i defy you to find a cuter sloth than that baby one!
cutest baby animal EVER!
you rock jenbug

girrafes!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What about zebras?

By frangipani (not verified) on 09 Apr 2010 #permalink