>>717184424
The answer is because DKC3 had a different lead character artist from the first two DKCs whose character/enemy designs were helmed by Kev Bayliss and Steve Mayles, a guy at Rare named Mark Stevenson. Stevenson actually designed a couple of enemies along with Mayles for DKC2 such as pic related which basically is a proto DKC3 enemy.

Really it's the entire reason to why DKC3 feels a bit off kilter in comparison to the first two games: it was largely made up of a different development team, as the original DKC1/2 crew led by Gregg Mayles left for greener pastures (Dream/Banjo Kazooie).