Turbo Pudding

JungalooThe real story

A shy okapi and four more real animals in Tavo’s jungle

· The Turbo Pudding team · 5 min read

In Mossgate Ruins, Socks the okapi, drawn large, a dark brown animal with a pale face mask, big ears with a little green twig clip on one of them, long lashes, white stripes on his rump and striped legs, stands by a green fern and curls a long blue tongue up from his mouth in a quick lick, while Tavo, a boy with a topknot and a woven fruit basket on his back, stands on the mossy ledge on the left and grins at him; a pink butterfly sits in the grass, a small purple flower grows by the edge, and pale stone arches with thin waterfalls rise in the lilac mist behind them

The Thousandleaf Isles aren’t real, but many of their animals are. Under the Baron’s Dazzle, most of them make trouble, and every troublemaker gives a tell first. It’s Thursday, so here are five of them, one friend and four troublemakers, next to the real thing.

Socks, a very shy bush

In Mossgate Ruins, Tavo finds an okapi trying to hide behind a fern much smaller than he is. “Oh! S-sorry. I’m not here. I’m a bush,” says Socks. Tavo isn’t fooled: “You’re an okapi.” Socks thinks it over: “…A very shy bush.”

Socks is the strong friend. Tavo rides on his back, where a throw becomes a ram that breaks cracked stone. Socks did warn him: “If I get scared, I might… run. Through things. Sorry in advance.” His big ears show how he feels: down when he’s shy, up when he’s scared and forward when he’s made up his mind. Now and then, a long tongue comes out for a quick lick.

The real okapi lives only in the rainforests of the northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, and its closest living relative is the giraffe. The white stripes on its brown legs help it disappear among dense leaves. Harry Johnston, who first got okapi specimens for science, never saw a live one, only pieces of striped skin and a skull. In 1901, the okapi was first described as a new kind of horse, but the skull showed it was a relative of the giraffe. Its tongue is long and dark, long enough to clean its own eyes and ears. We made Socks’s tongue blue.

The pangolin that rolls

Socks isn’t the only local in Mossgate Ruins. There’s also a pangolin, and we drew its coat of overlapping scales like a pine cone. Its tell is easy to spot: it curls up into a ball and shivers for a little over half a second. Then it rolls at Tavo. While it rolls, a thrown fruit just bounces off. If it hits a wall, it sits up, uncurled and dizzy.

In Mossgate Ruins, a pangolin curled up into a tight brown ball of overlapping scales, with one eye and the tip of its snout peeking out, sits on a mossy stone ledge with two violet sparkles of the Baron’s Dazzle beside it, while Tavo, a boy with a topknot and a woven fruit basket on his back, stands a few steps away and looks at it with wide eyes; a pink butterfly rests on the grass between them, and pale stone arches, thin waterfalls and leafy vines fill the misty lilac background
Searched “animal that rolls into a ball.” Yes, and it’s armored.

The curling up is real. Pangolins live in Asia and Africa, and their scales are made of keratin, the same stuff as fingernails. When threatened, a pangolin curls into a ball and tucks its face under its tail, so the scales work as armor. Real pangolins don’t roll at anyone, though. They’re night animals that eat ants and termites with very long, sticky tongues. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service calls them the world’s most heavily trafficked mammal, and in 2025 it proposed listing seven pangolin species as endangered.

A kinkajou with a fig

The Glowwood is a night level, and its kinkajous have honey-gold fur, huge night eyes and a long tail that curls around their perch. When Tavo comes within range, a kinkajou winds its arm back with a fig in its paw. That’s the tell. A little under half a second later, the fig is on its way.

In the dark blue Glowwood at night, a honey-gold kinkajou with round ears, a big dark eye and a long tail curled down over the edge sits on a glowing mushroom shelf and holds a purple fig up behind its head, ready to throw it, with a violet sparkle by its feet, while Tavo, a boy with a topknot and a woven basket on his back, jumps through the air on the left with his arms crossed and his eyes wide; pale floating mushroom caps and soft teal and golden specks of light hang in the darkness around them
People also ask: “what do kinkajous eat?” Figs. Also, at you.

Real kinkajous live in the rainforests of Mexico and Central and South America. They’re in the raccoon family, and while they’re classified as carnivores, about 90 percent of what they eat is fruit, especially figs. A kinkajou holds a soft fruit in its front paws and scoops out the pulp with its tongue. Its grasping tail works like a fifth hand for climbing, though never for food. As far as we know, none of them throw.

Blue on purpose

At Thunderveil Falls, a little blue frog with black spots keeps watch on a ledge between the pools. It’s a blue poison dart frog. Before a hop, it crouches and puffs out its pale throat for about a third of a second, and then it leaps at Tavo.

On a mossy stone ledge at Thunderveil Falls, a bright blue poison dart frog with black spots crouches low on the right with its big pale blue throat puffed out and one eye on Tavo, a pink sparkle by its face, while Tavo, a boy with a topknot and a woven fruit basket on his back, stands at the left edge of the ledge facing it; three teal gems float in the misty air between them, a dragonfly hovers in the top corner, and pale stone pillars with green ledges and leafy vines fade into the lilac mist behind
Typed “blue frog black spots game.” It’s puffing up for a reason.

The real frog lives in small patches of forest surrounded by the Sipaliwini Savanna in southern Suriname. Its bright blue warns predators about the poison in its skin, and each frog’s black spots are its own, like a fingerprint. The poison most likely comes from the insects these frogs eat in the wild. At the Smithsonian’s National Zoo, where they get crickets and fruit flies, poison frogs aren’t poisonous at all. Despite the name, only three species are known to have been used on hunting darts, and the blue one isn’t among them.

“To-KAY!”

Inside Hollowheart, the great tree, some knotholes in the bark have two orange eyes in them. Get close, and a blue head with orange spots pops out and shouts “to-KAY!” That’s the tokay gecko’s tell. Less than half a second later, it lunges.

We didn’t make up the shout. According to the National Zoo, the male tokay gecko’s loud “to-kay” call, repeated several times in a row, gave the gecko its name. Tokays live across Southeast and East Asia and are among the largest geckos alive, with males up to about 16 inches long. Their grip is so strong they can hang on to a wall by a single toe.

Meet them in the jungle

Levels 1–3 and the first boss are free to play in your browser at jungaloo.com, Hollowheart included. The full game is $4.99, paid once. More about the game is on the Jungaloo page.

More about Jungaloo