Some animals jump for joy and other animals just jump out of their skin because they get so scared.
Many predators pounce on their prey from above and prey jump out of the way of danger.
Jumping may be normal for most creatures, but there are some that will never be able to jump.
25 Animals That Can’t Jump
1. Elephant
Elephants are the animals best known for not being able to jump.
Although commonly mistaken for being the only mammal that can’t jump, the elephant isn’t alone.
Elephants are the biggest animal that can’t jump.
Unlike their distant relative, the guinea pig, elephants are too heavy to be able to get their feet off of the ground.
However, the elephant has its own special gifts, such as being self aware.
The only other species to have self-awareness are apes, dolphins, and humans.
Elephants start life too heavy to jump, weighing up to 260 pounds at birth.
These giant creatures can then grow up to be seven tons, or 14,000 pounds.
2. Starfish
Starfish are unable to jump due to the lack of proper muscle structure.
While starfish may not be able to jump, they are able to regrow any limbs that they lose.
Starfish are very odd creatures.
Starfish aren’t known for being intelligent, which is probably due to their lack of a brain.
Starfish also lack blood, which allows them to live even after losing bits and pieces of themselves.
Their constant growth and sturdy bodies help starfish live for a minimum of 35 years.
Larger starfish are known for living even longer.
Their age range depends heavily on their species, of which there are around 2,000 in existence.
3. Sloth
Sloths are known as one of the slowest moving animals on the planet.
While sloths may have the proper body strength needed in order to jump, their lack of speed prevents them from jumping.
A sloth’s talents lie elsewhere.
All sloths have incredible upper-body strength.
Spending nearly all of their time hanging in trees gives sloths strong limbs and a grip on those trees and not even death can separate a sloth from its branch.
Sloths rarely come down from the trees due to all predators that hunt along the jungle floor.
The only time sloths can come down to the jungle floor is to relieve themselves, which is normally only about once a week.
4. Clam
There are more than 15,000 different species of clams, and only 150 of these species are edible.
However, not a single one of these clam species can jump.
By noticing the clam’s appendage-less body, you can see the source of their jumping problem.
Clams may lack eyes, ears, or noses, but they still manage to capture and eat plankton.
Clams start as larvae and don’t become the clams we know for anywhere from 25 to 28 months.
Ones that are able to avoid the grasp of their predators are able to live for 33 to 36 years.
5. Caecilian
Caecilians are legless amphibians that are often mistaken for massive worms.
Their ringed bodies, colorations, and detail-less figure make it difficult to tell their heads from their tails.
Due to their lack of limbs, they can’t jump.
You can find Caecilians all over the world in places like Mexico, Argentina, Central Africa, and Southeast Asia.
They like to eat worms, mollusks, frogs, lizards, small snakes, and termites.
These aggressive creatures will even hunt down and eat their own species.
The caecilian is the only amphibian in the world to have tentacles.
They are located between the nostrils and eyes of the caecilian and are used to help the caecilian find food.
6. European Glass Lizard
The European glass lizard, also known as the scheltopusik, proves that you don’t need legs in order to survive.
These legless creatures slither like a snake but have faces that resemble iguanas.
They grow to be 35 to 40 inches long, with the largest being 53 inches long.
Glass lizards will live 20 years on average, but they have been seen living to be 50 years old.
They spend these decades slithering across the ground, preying on snails and arthropods.
The scheltopusik is also known to swim and climb trees, but only when there is no other option.
In times of danger, they will drop their tails to use as a distraction for predators.
They don’t do this often because it takes a lot of time and energy to regrow their tail.
7. Sea Sponge
Spongebob, the cheerful sea sponge from SpongeBob Squarepants, may be able to jump while going jellyfishing, but sea sponges in real life have no such capabilities.
Sea sponges aren’t even able to move.
Along with being immobile, sea sponges are also unable to see, hear, smell, feel, or even think.
They don’t have eyes, ears, noses, nerves, muscles, organs, or a brain.
While this may make them sound more akin with trees than any other sea animal, they are animals.
Despite these animals being static, they are able to get their food by filtering the water that passes through them, catching plankton and oxygen.
They keep their predators, sea turtles and fish, from eating them by producing toxins.
8. Hippopotamus
Similar to elephants, hippopotamuses are unable to jump due to their weight.
This is the same reason that hippos are unable to swim.
Their weight plays to their advantage when they are charging or crushing predators that come into their territory.
Hippopotamuses are extremely territorial, especially when they’re in the water.
Hippos will honk and grunt at intruders.
Any threat that gets too close will find the ramming force of their bodies or will get chomped by their sharp, canine teeth.
When it looks like a hippopotamus is yawning in your direction, they’re actually getting ready to honk and grunt at you.
This warns the other hippos of the threat and gives the threat a chance to run off before the hippo attacks.
9. Chameleon
Chameleons love to climb trees and spend their days safe from predators by hiding under leaves and on branches.
Chameleons don’t have the speed or muscular structure to allow them to jump, but they have other talents that are more suited to their lifestyle.
The chameleon’s color-changing abilities are what has brought the spotlight to these short-lived reptiles.
They are able to change their color to help camouflage themselves from a long list of predators.
Chameleons also change their color based on their mood, time of day, temperature, or humidity.
The reptile’s colors are also used in their mating process.
Dominant males will be more brightly colored, while submissive males will have darker colors.
The females will change their colors in order to accept or reject males.
10. Rhinoceros
Rhinoceroses are some of the biggest animals walking the Earth, with only elephants being larger.
These massive creatures are vastly too heavy to be able to lift themselves off of the ground, weighing anywhere from 1,322 pounds to 7,716 pounds.
Despite having all of this weight, rhinos are able to run 30 to 40 miles per hour.
They will charge at predators that come after their crash, which is what a herd of rhinoceroses is called.
Most crashes only consist of mothers and babies because male rhinos prefer to live a solitary lifestyle.
Rhinoceroses are known for all pooping in the same areas.
These areas are called latrines, and they aren’t only used for rhinos to have a safe place to dispose of their bodily waste.
Latrines are also used for rhinos to see (or smell) what other rhinoceroses are in the area.
11. Tortoise
Tortoises are some of the longest-living reptiles on the planet and are known for how slowly they move.
Tortoises lack the speed and dexterity in order to be able to jump.
For the same reasons, Tortoises can’t swim either.
Tortoises may be slow, but they are able to walk nearly four miles per day.
These creatures may be slow, but they are extremely determined.
They are able to live in even the harshest conditions thanks to their double digestive tract, which is able to get every ounce of nutrients and water out of each bite.
12. Snake
Snakes may lack legs, but every inch of their long body is filled with muscles that give the snake total control over how they choose to move.
While snakes may be able to jet themselves forward with these muscles, they aren’t able to lift themselves off the ground through muscle power alone.
Due to their lack of external ears, snakes are also unable to hear anything.
No amount of sound will scare off a snake.
They still have internal ears, which are used to help them balance.
Snakes lack eyelids, which makes them unable to blink.
Instead, snakes have eye spectacles that are used to protect the eyes.
The spectacle is shed with the rest of the snake’s skin.
13. Slugs
Slugs are in a similar situation as snakes when it comes to the idea of jumping.
They lack legs, but they also lack muscle strength.
Instead, they have a sticky slime that follows them everywhere they go.
With slugs being invertebrates, they lack a spine.
They also lack any kind of bones, teeth, or tongue.
Instead, most of their body is one, large foot muscle that helps them crawl along the ground.
Slugs also have a radula, which is a special organ that grinds up food with thousands of protrusions.
These slimy critters are able to breed and fertilize their own eggs.
Slugs are hermaphrodites, which means they have both male and female reproductive organs.
Their eggs are able to stay dormant for years and will wait to hatch until the environment is right.
14. Opossum
Opossums are one of the few marsupials that are unable to jump.
It is important to remember that possums and opossums are two different animals, despite opossums frequently being shortened to possum.
Possums are the cute, chinchilla-like animals from Australia and opossums are the large, rat-like animals from the United States.
Opossums may not be able to jump, but they are excellent at climbing.
They are known for their ability to act like they’re dead when threatened.
However, an opossum has no control over when they play dead.
It is a response that comes from the animal’s inability to handle the stress.
15. Tick
Ticks are tiny, dangerous creatures that are able to crawl onto your flesh and firmly latch themselves on as they begin their parasitic tendencies.
They get onto your skin by crawling or landing onto you, whether it be through you lying on the ground or rubbing against tall grass.
Ticks don’t even need to jump or fly in order to land on their host.
These arachnids hide in blades of grass and leaves of plants until their host knocks them off.
Then, the tick uses their legs to clasp onto the flesh of their prey.
If you spot a tick on you or your pet, you will need to remove it immediately.
It only takes 24 to 48 hours of a tick sucking on their host’s blood for them to be able to give the host Lyme disease.
16. Leeches
Leeches are carnivorous worms that squirm through bodies of water, looking for their next meal.
Leeches lack the muscles needed to jump and spend the majority of their lives in water.
The only time they leave the water is when they’re attached to a host.
Not every leech has a taste for human blood.
There’s only one type of leech that sucks blood, most others prefer mollusks and bugs.
Even the bloodsucking leeches prefer the blood of frogs and turtles to human blood.
17. Sea Anemone
Sea anemone are the nearly plant-like animals that are closely related to jellyfish.
Their plant-like features are what prevent them from jumping.
Despite their lack of movement, sea anemone still have their own way of surviving.
The sea anemone doesn’t move, so food has to come to it.
Their stinging cells capture prey that hide in it and repel predators who want to eat it.
They can be found attached to rocks or burrowed in the sea floor.
18. Sea Cucumber
Sea cucumbers may have incredibly simple body structures, but their bodies are capable of incredible things.
Due to the simplicity of their bodies, they are unable to jump.
Instead, they are able to regrow parts of themselves that are eaten or torn apart.
Sea cucumbers live for five to 10 years.
In this time, they can be as small as 0.75 inches to as large as 6.5 feet.
They get this large by eating plenty of algae, tiny aquatic animals, or even eating waste materials.
19. Earthworm
Worms may be able to live in space, but they are unable to jump due to lack of proper muscle mass or structure.
Despite there being about 2,700 different species of earthworms, none of them have what it takes to get themselves off of the ground.
Earthworms are able to regrow and essentially clone themselves with the pieces of themselves that are split apart.
This is thanks to all the stem cells that are packed in an earthworm’s body.
These worms are able to reach massive sizes, some species reaching 12 feet long.
The largest earthworm was 22 feet long and was found in South Africa.
20. Lice
Lice and ticks share quite a lot in common.
Both of these pests are unable to jump but are still able to cause pain and illness to humans.
They are most commonly spread by the sharing of clothing and personal items, such as brushes or towels.
Lice have three stages of life.
They start as an egg or nit.
The next stage is their nymph form, which begins after they hatch. It only takes nymphs nine to 12 days in order to fully develop.
The final stage of life for lice is adulthood.
When fully grown, lice are only about the size of a sesame tree.
Lice will appear darker on dark hair and lighter on light hair.
21. Horseshoe Crab
Horseshoe crabs and ticks are unable to jump for the same reason.
They are more closely related to one another than horseshoe crabs are to crabs.
Horseshoe crabs are arachnids.
They lack the proper muscle structure for jumping and have an incredibly heavy shell weighing down their legs.
The shell of a horseshoe crab doesn’t grow with the crab, so it must be molted about 16 times during the horseshoe crab’s 10-year growth period.
These odd creatures have nine eyes and multiple light receptors along their telson, the appendage that looks like a tail.
22. Giraffe
Giraffes aren’t able to jump because they never need to jump and are too heavy for their thin legs to lift off of the ground.
These lanky mammals are capable of growing 14 to 18 feet tall.
The world’s tallest animal can weigh anywhere from 1,500 pounds to 3,000 pounds.
The heart of a giraffe weighs over 24 pounds alone.
Giraffes are so tall that they have to spread their legs out in order for their neck to be able to reach the ground.
23. Capybara
Capybaras are the biggest rodents on the planet, but their size and shape make it so they are unable to jump.
Their legs are too stumpy and their bodies are too wide and round to get the massive rodent off of the ground.
Capybaras may not be great at jumping, but they are excellent swimmers.
You will often see them float along Brazilian rivers, with their round noses just barely peeking above the water.
The water is the best way for capybaras to travel because they are not very fast on land.
24. Porcupine
Porcupines may be able to fend off predators with their sharp quills, but there’s no way for these spiky animals to jump out of the way of a predator.
Porcupines keep themselves safe with their 30,000 quills, which are a combination of soft and hard quills.
When scientists from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute were studying porcupines in the wild, they noticed that the creature never leaped and stuck to bridges of intertwining branches.
25. Hellbender Salamander
The hellbender salamander is named after its fiery coloration.
Although these are some of the largest salamanders in the world, they are unable to jump due to the size of their legs in relation to the size of their bodies.
Hellbender salamanders have an odd way of breathing.
While they do have lungs, they breathe through pores on their skin that act similarly to the gills of a fish.
Hellbenders may not be able to jump, but they are able to breathe through their skin.
