Rock Hyrax

Yes, though it is not an obvious relationship. Hyraxes, elephants, and the sea cows (manatees and the dugong) share a common ancestor and together form a branch of the mammal tree called Paenungulata. The shared features are anatomical rather than superficial — hyraxes have upper incisors that grow continuously into small tusks, like an elephant's tusks; they have flattened, hoof-like nails rather than claws on most toes, as elephants do; and details of their teeth, feet, skull, and reproductive anatomy line up with the elephant and sirenian pattern rather than with rodents or rabbits, which they merely resemble. Molecular studies have confirmed the grouping.

With its feet. The soles are hairless, soft, and rubbery, kept permanently moist by sweat glands, which helps them stick to smooth stone. In the middle of each footpad is a section that a set of muscles can pull upward, briefly creating a shallow suction cup, and the pad also moulds around small irregularities in the rock. Together this gives the hyrax remarkable grip, and it can sprint up cliff faces, run along ledges, and cross overhangs that look impossible for a stocky, short-legged animal. The same grippy feet make hyraxes surprisingly good at climbing trees where those are available.

They are not very good at keeping themselves warm. A rock hyrax has a relatively low resting body temperature that drops further overnight and varies through the day, and its metabolism does not ramp up efficiently to generate heat. To compensate, hyraxes rely on external warmth and on each other — they sleep in heaps inside rock crevices, sharing body heat, and after emerging they spend a large part of the morning basking, often stacked two or three deep on a sunny ledge, before they have enough energy to start feeding. This behaviour makes them easy to spot and, unfortunately, easy for eagles and leopards to target.

Hyraceum is the hardened, tar-like mass that builds up where hyrax colonies have urinated and defecated in the same sheltered rock crevice, sometimes for tens of thousands of years. The urine is rich in calcium and other compounds and crystallises into a rock-hard deposit that preserves pollen, plant fragments, and chemical signatures layer by layer, so scientists drill cores of it to reconstruct ancient vegetation and rainfall, much as they use ice cores or lake sediments. The perfume industry separately harvests aged hyraceum as a natural fixative with a musky, animalic scent, sold as "African stone," a cruelty-free alternative to musk from animals like the musk deer.