The three strangest animals used for yarn

Sure, you can make yarn from sheep's wool, cotton or acrylic polymers. But why stop there? These innovative yarns are made from the fur of animals you would not expect!

1. Possum 
Right up front I have to say, this yarn isn't made from the kind of opossum you're probably imagining. Instead, the fibers are gathered from the pelt of an invasive species in New Zealand. The Australian brush-tailed possum was introduced to New Zealand in the late 1800s and has flourished, much to the detriment of native species.

This is one of the few yarns which is made from dead animals, rather than being harvested as shed fibers from live animals. But that's OK, because it helps to support the possum-trapping industry in New Zealand which is working to protect the country's delicate natural balance of ecology.

2. Musk Oxen
The musk oxen is a truly prehistoric animal. This large, shaggy, belligerent animal migrated across the Bering Land Bridge during the Pleistocene, alongside woolly mammoths. Unlike the woolly mammoth, the musk oxen managed to survive, probably partly due to its sour temper.

Every year in spring, the musk oxen molt the delicate yet thick and durable wool from their undercoats. This fiber (called Qiviut) is lofty, fine and incredibly warm. It's also very expensive, because you can't comb out or shear a musk ox. You have to wander around plucking the wads of shed fiber from the bushes and tundra.

3. Mink
Always wanted a mink stole, but didn't want to be the cause of all that suffering? Then you're in luck, because now you can buy yarn made from the downy fiber which is combed from "healthy, stress-free minks" twice a year. Great Northern Yarns has pioneered a mink yarn which is blended with cashmere, for a little extra kick of luxury.

Image courtesy of Flickr/Taraji Blue