Source: Cracked
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This is the kind of creature you only expect to see when you reach the end of the dungeon in a Zelda game. It looks like a snake that by some magic spell grew legs and a protective pine-comb-like shell -- you're probably gonna need a crapload of bombs to kill this thing.
But, no, this is a real animal called the pangolin, which wanders around sub-Saharan Asia and Africa looking like a wad of pasted-together fingernail clippings. The pangolin is considered to be magic by some cultures: Women looking for certain men will bury pangolins near the male's door. Also, it has a massive snake-like tongue that, when unfurled, can actually be longer than its entire body.
By the way, when we said it's like a wad of fingernails, we meant it literally: Its scales have the texture of a toenail and grow like one as well. Constant burrowing for termites and ants (its only diet, since it has no teeth) keeps the scale edges filed down and manageable. When threatened, pangolins curl up in a near-impenetrable shell and can even roll away from danger. So in reality, it's less Zelda villain, more Transformer.
But, no, this is a real animal called the pangolin, which wanders around sub-Saharan Asia and Africa looking like a wad of pasted-together fingernail clippings. The pangolin is considered to be magic by some cultures: Women looking for certain men will bury pangolins near the male's door. Also, it has a massive snake-like tongue that, when unfurled, can actually be longer than its entire body.
By the way, when we said it's like a wad of fingernails, we meant it literally: Its scales have the texture of a toenail and grow like one as well. Constant burrowing for termites and ants (its only diet, since it has no teeth) keeps the scale edges filed down and manageable. When threatened, pangolins curl up in a near-impenetrable shell and can even roll away from danger. So in reality, it's less Zelda villain, more Transformer.
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