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

I think viewing angle and danger come into it as well. Most zoo enclosures often have you looking down at the subject from many angles (esp if you stand rather than crouch or kneel) and as such when we look down on something it appears smaller. Meanwhile if you look at or up to something it gains in size (photographers discover this - photos on or looking up to eye level are also more pleasing as they are a different angle from our normal down angle when we stand).

Danger I think plays a part; a zoo animal is 0 danger to the viewer. There's no risk no harm even in the biggest (although I suspect watching something like a whale display close up voids that). In the wild though there's risk - either that it harms you or that you spook it and it vanishes. More apt to crouch or be low to the ground (angle again) but I think also the change in relationship between you and the subject plays a big part.

Linked to this is distance; at the zoo you can get close but there's always a barrier. In the wild if you get close there's no barrier; no block no protection - so the closer you get the higher the risk element and, I think, the more it exaggerates our memory and feeling of size and proportion. Small things might get smaller; big things get way bigger - esp in memory after the event (at least until such point as one becomes familiar).

 

I finally saw Sulawesi crested macaques today (they're hard to come by in the US) and they were a significant amount smaller than I expected.

 

Much smaller than expected:
Giant Panda
White Rhinoceros
Cottontail Tamarin
Bali Myna
Java Sparrow

Much larger than expected:
Sun Bear
Coati
Azara's Agouti
Darwin's Rhea
Emu

 

Assuming you're talking about mantas seen in aquariums, it is perhaps worth mentioning that no aquarium (as far as I know) has kept a fully grown giant oceanic manta aka the really big one. A few Asian aquariums and Georgia keep the relatively small reef manta and the medium-sized "cf. birostris" type is also at Georgia. Lisboa kept a giant oceanic, but released it before it was fully grown.

The first manta I ever saw, I guess a giant oceanic, swam under our boat in the Galapagos and it seemed huge. The two giant oceanics I've seen on dives also appeared huge. The mantas I've seen in aquariums... not so much! They genuinely appeared far smaller, but it might just be the perspective.

 

Gorillas. They looked smaller than I thought they would. They were also much more animated than I thought they would be, though this might have had to do with the fact that it was forage feeding time.

 

Yeti
http://www.rufford.org/files/Semnopithecus ajax with infant.JPG
http://indiasendangered.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/brown-bear.jpg
and Nessie
http://imgc.allpostersimages.com/im...blin-european-otter-lutra-lutra-riverbank.jpg

Bummer...

 

How about Atlantis, Bahamas before release?

https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/01/53/c1/d0/paradise-island.jpg

 

Thanks, somehow I entirely forgot that place! Anyway, although I may be wrong, everything I've seen from there (including the photo in your post) suggest we're dealing with the "cf. birostris type". As they had several individuals, they might have had both, but I've yet to see evidence of giant oceanic. Both are known from the wild in the Bahamas.

 

Well either way, they're all released and I'm not sure when they're getting new ones.

On the thread's topic:
Greater Jerboa, they are huge! Today I was in the Mouse House at the Bronx Zoo and when I got to the jerboa exhibit my face was really close to the glass trying to find a small mouse like animal and I nearly fell down when it jumped out of the bushes next to my face as I was completely unprepared for the size

 

Roadrunner, because of the cartoon.

Musk ox and Takin, because people think that they are Bovines, but they are Caprines.

Tasmanian devil, it's different from the impression that the images give.

Aye-ayes, Sifakas, Indries... Lemurs. The size is different than it looks.

Flamingos? When I was a small child I thought they were bigger.

 

Where have you seen an Indri?

 

I haven't, but I discovered that he was the biggest lemur.

 

Also Kakapo.

 

Yes many people are fooled by how small Tassie Devils actually are

 

Sifaka and cuscus - they look very cute on pictures. In real life, sifaka has ugly Roman nose, and cuscus has claws like climbing crampons.

And polar bears in the wild. There is nothing cute about them. They are as big as a cow, and very fast.

 

Well what did you expect about the cuscus... There from in Australia where ever animal has some monstrous weapon that can kill you/injure you. The cute and cuddly animals are no exception (even koalas can badly hurt people)

 

Well actually not all Cuscus are from Australia,some of them come from strange place called New Guinea,which is not part of Australia!

And for the record any animals round the rest of the world can be just as dangerous as animals from Australia,so animals from Australia aren't any more special in the regards to any other countries animals,but as you are the expert on all things animal you knew that already!

 

I realise that but if figured he meant the spotted cuscus which is native to Australia.

 

Giant Pandas are much smaller than I originally thought.

 

Spotted cuscus is native to new guinea too