Bizarre New Species Discovered - Giant Elephant Shrew (VIDEO)

This little fur ball has a trunk like an elephant, but is the size of a cat! Until now, no one knew that the Rhynochocyon udzungwensis existed as it’s remained a hidden secret of the mountains of Tanzania

It’s a giant elephant shrew, also known as sengi, but really, it should have been called an eleshrew. The BBC says it “looks like a cross between a miniature antelope and a small ant eater.”

“It has a grey face, a long, flexible snout, a bulky, amber body, a jet-black rump and it stands on spindly legs.”

Even more bizarre is that it’s not related to a shrew at all; it actually shares a common ancestor with elephants, sea cows, aardvarks and hyraxes.

I’m not sure what this means in the world of trends, but perhaps it just goes to show that while some scientists are busy creating new breeds of animals in labs (glittering gold seahorses, glow-in-the-dark cats, pigs and fish) there are still already existing species ready to be discovered.