Slow lorises are the only known venomous primate.

Two slow lorises clutching each other
Credit: zhang yongxin/stock.adobe.com

Don’t let the big eyes and fuzzy fur fool you — slow lorises are as dangerous as they are cute. In fact, they’re the only known venomous primates; brachial glands on their upper arms produce an oil that, when licked, combines with their saliva to produce venom. That venom is then pulled into their toothcomb, which is activated with the loris’s bite. Luckily for other citizens of the animal kingdom, slow lorises mostly use their venom against each other during territorial disputes rather than on other animals.

That’s very good news for the rest of us, as their bite is strong enough to pierce through bone and their venom has flesh-rotting capabilities. As primate conservationist Anna Nekaris told The New York Times, “If the killer bunnies on Monty Python were a real animal, they would be slow lorises — but they would be attacking each other.”