Death for a frisky fortnight? You've got yourself a deal.

This marsupial is capable of screwing a single partner for up to 12 hours straight, so he’s quite the Don Juan, although fidelity isn’t part of his limited vocabulary. He’s straight onto the next partner as soon as he’s finished and it goes on like that until his body gives in.

You see, the brown antechinus likes getting down and dirty so much that he doesn’t eat or sleep or wash or anything else and eventually his immune system completely shuts down. A high price to pay for one hell of a fortnight, but, one has to admit, not the worst way to go.

How did I not know this about porcupines until now? How is this not common knowledge?

Maybe because it’s disgusting.

When a female porcupine is on heat, the bloke ambles around smelling places where she has had a slash and apparently that gets him going.

At that point, the pair engage in a ‘comical dance’. Not sure how this helps, but that’s the non-disgusting part, so I’d advise you to dwell on that for a bit before the big finish.

The big finish is this: After the comical dance, the male urinates all over the female.

Seriously, all over her. Top to toe. He can fire it seven feet, the stream’s that powerful.

"I am golden god..."

Well, he might look like a member of The Kinks and he might be one of the biggest-selling artistes in the jungles of South America, but he just couldn’t make it in the UK.

It’s been argued that his lack of success in the English-speaking world is chiefly a question of image: the main problem being that his bum and his face are pretty similar in appearance. Of course, that never stopped Elton, so maybe the white-faced saki just needs to persevere.

Maybe it’s just that he’s too unoriginal – I mean, the saki’s not even endangered. Who can be bothered to listen to music that hasn’t got a political or environmental agenda? That’s why this year’s Glasto is headlined by revered preacher men Bono and Coldplay.

Praise the Lord! Kill me now.

Facially challenged

Bats aren’t really anybody’s favourite pets, but this one is on a one-bat mission to ruin bat-human relations for all eternity. It’s all down to the fact that this bat clearly recognises how fond we are of cuteness when it comes to animals, before flying right in the face of our aesthetics.

Talking of faces – the Kerivoula Kachinensis’s primary weapon is its unholy phizog. Imagine a cat’s arse with vamp fangs and you’ve basically got the picture. Leathery skin wings come as standard, as with most bats, and the look is topped off by a furry body worthy of the biggest and foulest moth in the rainforest.

God's earlier attempts had a few design issues.

If you’ve ever wondered what the illegitimate lovechild of a feather duster and a coke bottle would look like then the pink fairy armadillo is only too happy to provide you with an answer.

This gorgeous little rodent gives Tinkerbell a run for her money as the prettiest and most precocious of the fairies out there, thanks in part to its vaguely pinkish colour, which scientists reckon is permanent but which I think is probably just the blush it raises when praised for its cuteness.

Anyway, enough of that. What I meant to say is that this member of the armadillo family is no more acceptable than the rest of them. To be honest, it’s nothing short of an aberration, with its bat face, splintery feet and ridiculous coat of armour.

Fortunately, the pink fairy is known for being able to hide itself in seconds when threatened. So much the better for all of us.

What do you call a white donkey? A honky.

What do you call a donkey with two short legs? A wonky.

What do you call a donkey that lives in a tree? A monkey.

What do you call a donkey that you can use to repair a bike? An Allen key.

What do you call a beige donkey? A khaki.

What do you call two donkeys with high-pitched voices? A Pinky and Perky.

What do you call a donkey that’s good with electrics? A sparky.

What do you call an artificial donkey? A placcy.

What do you call a donkey that’s crossed with a horse? A mule.

Hey, er, you’re going to get to meet my new girlfriend tonight. She should be here in a bit.

Is she hot? Er, well, yeah… She’s warm-blooded anyway.

What does she look like? She’s got quite small eyes. I mean really, really, very small eyes. No, not like piggy eyes – much smaller than that. Minuscule pinpricks really. That’s offset by her nose though, which is a bit bigger than most people’s. It’s sort of long and tubular. Very striking.

Her hair is kind of… Well, imagine a lesbian with spiky bleached blonde hair and then imagine she’s got alopecia, so the hair’s really sparse.

What do you reckon? Do you think she sounds nice?

Did I mention that her nose is also her mouth?

Much like people who want to make it in ‘business’, a tarsier’s eye is as big as its brain. In the tarsier’s case, this is because its eyes are massive.

They have ridiculously long fingers. The third one is the same length as their upper arms. Two of their toes have bear claws – but not the others, for some reason.

According to Wikipedia, they catch insects by ‘jumping at them’ which seems a primitive and somewhat amateurish hunting technique.

However, if an animals got the decency to have eyes like that, I’ll forgive most things. I would happily buy a tarsier a pint on that basis alone.

A gliding marsupial. That’s pretty cool.

Sugar gliders live in trees and are nocturnal. They’re called sugar gliders because they like sweet foods, although their preference is for fruit, rather than cakes or chocolate.

Weirdly, despite living in groups of about 15 and therefore seeming like they might be quite sociable animals, they actually boot their young out when they reach the age of about seven to ten months old. This seems particularly harsh being as they don’t even open their eyes for their first three months of life and spend the first couple of those in the old pouch.

I don’t know. It’s just a freaky little lemur, I guess. The picture above looks pretty hideous, but they’re not quite so bad when they’re full-grown.

Focusing on the weird look rather detracts from its major selling point anyway. The Aye-aye has a truly massive middle finger. It doesn’t use this finger for expressing its displeasure with friends or colleagues though. It uses it for grub hunting.

Rodenty face, squirrelly tail, one finger from a much larger animal. It’s a rum beast and no mistake. It’s also not very polite. Male Aye-ayes will pull other males off the female when they’re in the middle of doing it. That’s just bad manners.