What animal looks different in real life to what you expected?

Normally bringing up an old theme that has been left for so long would be normally closed but in this case quiet a few things can be said

I do agree on almost every post except the reindeer (finnish forest subspecies is bigger than the domestic subspecies), in general the size can vary depending on the sub/species

Animals that look alike can give a wrong impression and one easily assumes them to be equal in size

Ironicaly I expected something between a malayan tapir and a brazilian tapir so tjem to be about the same size instead of one bigger and one smaller than expected

european lynx are always bigger while bobcat feel like a house cat
skunk and badger remind me of one another while the first is way smaller while the other was almost gigantic compared the imagnied sized

somw domestication forms were smaller yaks are significant smaller and water buffalos too, while horses and pigs can be depending on the breed way bigger
 
I was surprised by how small a Royal Antelope was when I first saw one, and was amazed by how long a Gerenuk neck was, and how tall they are when they stand on their hind legs.
 
Grant Rhino said:
I recently saw a numbat in a zoo for the first time in my life. Of course I knew what a numbat was, and had seen photos of them, but what really surprised me was how small it was (I expected them to be quite a lot bigger).

On the same day, my son said that he thought Tasmanian Devils would be bigger than they are.

What animal have you seen in a zoo that is bigger or smaller or different in any way to what you expected?
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As a small boy, I was surprised at rabbits and mice not being the same size.
 
The biggest surprise for me has been the springhaas, I had assumed they were comparable to a bunny at most.
Roadrunners are smaller than I expected, and secretary birds are bigger.
Tigers are always a bit smaller, and narrower, than I expect.
 
Bigger than I thought:
*North American River otter-I thought they were like mink
*White-tailed jackrabbit-I thought they were like cottontails. The first time I saw one in the wild I couldn't believe how big they were
*Beaver-I thought these were MUCH smaller. I saw a full grown one once and thought it was a dog
*Macaws-Every species of macaw I've seen impresses me. I always imagined something like an Amazon species.

Smaller than I thought:
*Wolverine-I thought these were like small bears. They're tiny compared to what I was expecting.
*Bobcat-As a kid I thought these were like mountain lions. Not hardly!
*Coyote-As a kid I thought these were comparable to wolves.
*Gray wolf-I always imagined then being much larger. If you listen to the anti wolf crowd in the western U.S. you would think they were the size of lions. People go on nonstop about the nonnative Canadian wolf ruining the ecosystem.
*Bottlenose Dolphin-I thought these were like great white sharks as a kid. The first time I saw one I couldn't believe how small it was. I asked the guy if those were babies.
*Toucans-I always imagined these to be massive. Not so much.
 
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Everybody thinks a unicorn is going to be beautiful and majestic. They get billed as these graceful, magical creatures full of wonder, but in reality all they want to do is steal your car to go joy riding through the meadows. A very disappointing animal all things considered. The hype definitely does not match the reality.
 
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DavidBrown said:
Everybody thinks a unicorn is going to be beautiful and majestic, but then you see one and they don't groom themselves at all. They let all manner of twigs, leaves, and other debris tangle up in their hair. And they get billed as these graceful, magical creatures full of wonder, but in reality all they want to do is get high by eating fermented Brussels sprouts and try and steal your car to go joy riding through the meadows. A very disappointing animal all things considered. The hype definitely does not match the reality.
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Erm... are you a unicorn?
 
DavidBrown said:
Everybody thinks a unicorn is going to be beautiful and majestic. They get billed as these graceful, magical creatures full of wonder, but in reality all they want to do is steal your car to go joy riding through the meadows. A very disappointing animal all things considered. The hype definitely does not match the reality.
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I still remember the moment I saw my first unicorn. One would expect them to be graceful indeed, and of course magical. While its an impressive beast to look at, but I still think it's false advertisement.

Behold: this photo by @Ituri shows the one and only unicornis!

full
 
Both species share the same specific epithet for obvious reasons - as does also this and this and this and this and this and even this or this - but of course that the true unicorn is the one mentioned by Mr. Zootycon and not any other species, as this is the one that gave origin to the myth.
 
Kakapo said:
but of course that the true unicorn is the one mentioned by Mr. Zootycon and not any other species, as this is the one that gave origin to the myth.
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You'd be surprised how much debate there actually is on that point :P with other contenders including the Arabian Oryx (despite having two horns), the Nubian Ibex (ditto) and the extinct Elasmotherium (which did have a single horn).
 
I hate to admit it, but I'm always slightly disappointed when I see zoo elephants in person and just have a moment of "Oh, that's it?" because in my head I always build them up as these towering behemoths. Of course specimens differ, and I think its more that the elephants I have seen just happen to be on the smaller side

On the opposite end of this scale, giraffes viewed from the ground level always take my breath away. Especially in like safari situations where they walk right past your car. White rhinoceros and hippos also surprise me sometimes

I was a huge European badger fan throughout most of my childhood, and for years the only living one I had seen was a tail disappearing into the bushes at Centre Parcs. I went badger-watching in Inverness in around 2014 and was rather disappointed. Having grown up on the Redwall books I was kind of expecting them to be bigger, taller, and broader than they are. I think also the ones I saw were either yearlings or sows. I hear Five Sisters has quite an impressive male badger, I should check it out

And as for my fav boys, the Scottish wildcats, they always go one of two ways. Either you go expecting some huge, wild-looking, long-legged and fierce cat and find what basically looks like a housecat (as much as I hate saying it), or you go expecting to see a 2% larger version of your neighbourhood stray and find something that literally does look like a miniature tiger. My favourite specimens of the former category I've seen in Five Sisters Zoo and the Scottish Deer Centre, the RZSS ones are a bit of a mixed bag, but I don't think the ones at Edinburgh now look particularly good.
 
I mentioned this earlier in the thread, but Takin are way larger than I expected. I thought they would be the size of a Tahr, then I saw my first one at Beijing Zoo which walked right up to the fence to see me. Now of course I can't imagine a Takin as being Tahr-sized at all, it just seems ridiculous.

Giant Squid and Colossal Squid were much smaller than imagined. All the ones I have seen have been preserved specimens though, and I'd guess that if a live one swam past me at the beach I'd have a different opinion...

Malia are always described as "babbler-like" so I expected them to be the size of babblers (i.e. small) but they certainly are not.

Camels are a weird one too. There are no more camels in New Zealand, so when I do see them overseas I am always a bit shocked how much they dwarf horses. And then in northern India I would see individual camels which would dwarf the regular-sized horse-dwarfing camels. Like super-huge steroidal camels crossed with elephants.
 
Chlidonias said:
I mentioned this earlier in the thread, but Takin are way larger than I expected. I thought they would be the size of a Tahr, then I saw my first one at Beijing Zoo which walked right up to the fence to see me. Now of course I can't imagine a Takin as being Tahr-sized at all, it just seems ridiculous.
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They're basically the caprine equivalent of steroid abuse :P

Chlidonias said:
Like super-huge steroidal camels crossed with elephants.
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Camelephants :p
 
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Black Footed Beast said:
Pangolin was smaller than I expected, Fossa was bigger than I expected
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I think part of your pangolin problem is that most ZooChatters have a clear mental picture of what a pangolin looks like, but even those of us who have seen a live pangolin have usually only seen one species so we don't fully appreciate that there are different species which all look quite similar - particularly in photographs where it's hard to judge the scale - but are actually different sizes when fully grown. The same is true, to some extent, with groups such as armadillos and macropods (potoroos, pademelons, wallabies and kangaroos). It's even true of such familiar creatures as otters, there are differences between the species of course, but if the first otter you ever see is an Asian small-clawed, even the name of the giant otter may not quite prepare you for your first glimpse. I remember being very surprised by the size of the first Cape clawless otters I saw at Basle, as I hadn't seen a giant otter at that time.
Funnily enough a minute or two before, I had seen my first brown hyaena, which was not much of a surprise, and my first fossas, which were much smaller than I had expected, which was puzzling, particularly as their enclosure had no label, but I realised that they were young specimens which were probably newly arrived.
 
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I was surprised at how small a platypus was when I first saw one - somehow I expected it to be about twice that size! Also the first time I stood next to (separated by a fence) an American bison I was dumbfounded by the massiveness of it. I remember it was shedding its winter coat and I plucked some of it
 
Seeing a lion on a behind the scenes tour they are a lot bigger than when you see them at a normal distance. Also (Asian) elephants were a bit smaller than I expected barring the male of course and I have yet to see an African elephant, hope to tick that off the bucket list soon though.
 
The river dolphin in Rio Negro in Zoo Duisburg. During my visit last years summer I had a lot of high hopes for this encounter, I'm not dissapointed with it, but I did imagined it to be a much larger animal. Later that year (november) I visited AquaZoo Friesland and got to encounter absolutely massive Nile crocodiles, I imagined them way smaller, but those things were absolutely massive.
 
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