Cute!

I'm back with another entry in the Guide to Animals You Didn't Realize Were So Cute, this time with a hard-shelled long-nosed submission that's sure to brighten your day.

You know the Mondays where you look at the to-do list (or worse, have it swirling in your head like your forgotten lunch's chowder) and want to immediately retreat under your blankets and decry the entire day?

On this most Monday of Mondays (thus far in 2025), I turn to content discovered in another dark period (the Pandemic).

If you've never heard of this week's featured cute animal, the rock hyrax, allow me to paint you a word picture -- imagine a cross between a loaf of bread and a groundhog, add adorable little fangs, and inflate the resulting animal's paws to comically round proportions.

Noblegarden starts this week in World of Warcraft, but rather than dwell on the years-long effort to collecting duck disguises, I suggest we go back to the roots of the in-game holiday.

Now, we know cats can be incredibly cute, and dogs can be incredibly cute, but generally when you put them together, things are decidedly not cute, right?

Believe it or not, the Metro Richmond Zoo's precious Poppy was merely the last arrival in a personality-packed lineup of newborn pygmy hippos in the last year.

It's even more critical we start this week on the right foot Watchers, as this is the week of April 1, and we're going to need the cute to balance the chaos.

It's just another manic Monday, and that means it's time for cute animals!

Somehow we're on yet another Monday, but if you thought that the cuteness would be themed around Saint Patrick’s Day — joke’s on you!