Weird-looking critters always generate high-interest from students — English Language Learners and mainstream alike. Reading, writing, and talking about them are excellent language-development activities, and I’ve listed some good accessible sites on this list.

In the second part of this post, I share some sites that — believe it or not — let students also easily create their own weird-looking animals. First designing, then describing (along with talking and listening) them also provide good language-learning opportunities.

Here are my choices for The Best Sites For Learning About Weird-Looking Creatures And For Making Your Own!):

LEARNING ABOUT THEM:

The Web Ecoist has several good resources, including:

The 9 Strangest Animals on Earth

Nine Outstanding Expanding Animals!

15 of the World’s Strangest Animals

20 Scary Animals

Learn about Top 10 Fantastic and Surreal Creatures (and see pictures) at Listverse.

CREATING YOUR OWN:

Build Your WIldself is from the New York Zoos and Aquarium. Instead of explaining it here, I’m just going to suggest you read a post from Kevin Jarrett which explains it in detail.

The Switch Zoo is another similar site. However, you can only print-out creation, not save it online.

Feedback is always welcome.

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