For many of us, animals are just amazing and cute creatures, no matter what species they are or what they do. But there is one thing that can make them even more adorable – yawning! Yep, you might have noticed this reflex in you dog or cat but in fact, most of animal species yawn. In animals, yawning doesn’t always have to be associated with tiredness or sleepiness but it can also serve as a warning signal. Baboons, for example, sometimes yawn to display their long scary canines to threaten their enemies. No matter if they yawn because of being sleepy or to intimidate possible predators, these 25 yawning animals are irresistibly cute. Btw, yawning has been proven to be contagious so can you go through the whole list without yawning yourself?
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This sleepy hedgehog baby is just a few days old but in fact, hedgehogs are quite long-lived animals. Larger species can live up to seven years in the wild and even more in captivity. The oldest specimens have been recorded to live up to 16 years.
www.reddit.com Apart from yawning, ferrets can mimic human behavior in a few more ways. It is a little known fact but you can teach your ferret to blow his nose into a cloth handkerchief. That actually comes quite naturally because they "wash” their faces with scent from glands that are below and behind their ears by holding their hands over their nostrils and blow, sometimes sneezing, to dislodge some scent, then they will rub their hands behind their ears and forward over their faces.
zooamerica.wordpress.com When yawning, lions proudly show off their large and sharp canine teeth but in fact, they usually kill their prey by strangulation. The prey also may be killed by the lion enclosing the animal's mouth and nostrils in its jaws. An average kill made by a male lion may weight around 400 kg (880 lb).
justinsomnia.org With pelicans, it may be difficult to determine when the bird is really yawning and when it is just drying out its pouch. They use the pouch as a scoop net for catching small fish. The pouch can hold up to three gallons of water, which is up to three times the amount of what the bird´s stomach can hold.
flickr.com While hippos may not be the most cutely-looking animals when yawning, they can definitely open their mouth the widest. Studies have proven that a hippo can stretch his mouth open as wide as an incredible 150 degrees which may be enough to fit a 4-foot tall child in. But trying that would be a really bad idea because hippos are famous for their extremely powerful jaws and ill-tempered sometimes even aggressive approach towards humans.
ngm.nationalgeographic.com 
