Looking more like a bedraggled bumblebee than the mammal it is, the lowland streaked tenrec belongs to a very curious group indeed.
Tenrecs, including this species, are mostly endemic to the island of Madagascar and despite all being quite closely related are wildly diverse, varying hugely in body size, look, and lifestyle.
Despite not looking much like one another, many do however closely resemble other species of animals that they are not closely related to at all. Some look like hedgehogs, some shrews, others rats and mice. As such they are both an example of both divergent and convergent evolution.
Divergent being when species in the same group evolve different traits in response to different habitats and lifestyles, convergent being when species in different groups evolve to have similar features due to similar environmental pressures. The lowland streaked tenrec for example, like distantly related hegehogs, has evolved sharp spines as a defence from predators. A very similar solution to the same problem.
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