Find out which animal has the thickest fur

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:55

There are many champions in the natural world: the fastest animal is the cheetah, which can reach speeds of up to 130 km per hour, that is, it can overtake a car in a short distance; the strongest is the lion, who is not in vain called the king of the African savannas; the loudest is the blue whale - its cry is heard for 800 km! What animal has the thickest fur? Read about it in the article.

Which animal has the thickest fur?

The answer to this question is simple - the chinchilla. Yes, it is this small rodent, whose body length rarely exceeds 35 cm, that has very thick fur. Chinchillas are the champions of the animal world in fur density.

Amazing wool

For 1 sq. cm surface of the chinchilla body accounts for at least 25 thousand hairs! In addition, its fur has an unusual structure: if in other animals only one hair grows from one hair follicle, then in this rodent from one "house" grows up to 80 finest hairs (the thickness of one hair varies from 12 to 25 microns). Now you know which animal has the thickest fur.

Chinchilla's fur is so dense that parasites never start in it. They simply cannot get through the hairs to the skin to bite this animal.

Rodents in their natural environment live in South America. They are very fond of bathing in fine sand or dust, but especially in volcanic ash. In this way, chinchillas clean their fur of dirt, loose hairs or remove excess moisture.

The food of these rodents is common for herbivores - plants, mainly cereals, seeds, moss, lichens, tree bark, sometimes they can catch and eat small insects.

Second place

There is another answer to the question of which animal has the thickest coat. The musk ox, or musk ox, is a large animal up to 140 cm high and weighing more than half a ton; it has been walking on the ground for more than a million years. This is another owner of incredibly thick wool. It completely covers his body, only the horns, hooves, lips and nose remain open. Thanks to its amazing fur coat, the muskox easily endures the most severe frosts, which are not uncommon in its habitats - the northern lands of North America, Greenland, northeastern Alaska.

But besides the density, the wool of the musk ox impresses with its footage. Strands hang down to the ground and reach up to 60 cm in length! This large horned animal has especially long fur under the neck. The coat is shorter in summer than in winter.

Conclusions

From the article you learned which animal has the longest and thickest coat: the chinchilla is the undisputed champion in the world of fauna in terms of fur density, and the musk ox is in second place as the owner of very thick and unusually long hair.