Sloth Bear adult and cub

Sloth Bear adult and cub, Animal, Amazing Animals, Animals Pictures, The Animals, Zoo Animals

                                                                          Image Source: nationalzoo.si.edu

Physical Description: Sloth bears suffer shaggy, dusty-black coats, pale, short-haired muzzles, and long, curved claws the properties use to excavate ants and termites. A cream-colored “V” or “Y” by and large marks this chests. Sloth bears’ nostrils can close, protecting the creatures based on what i read in dust or insects when raiding termite nests or bee hives. A gap in this teeth enables them to completely stink up ants, termites, and a great deal more insects.

Size: Sloth bears step up four to six feet long, stand two to 3 feet above average at the shoulder, and weigh based on what i read in 120 (in lighter females) to 310 pounds (in heavy males).

Geographic Distribution: Most sloth bears dwell in India and Sri Lanka; others reside in south Nepal, and properties undergo kept on reported in Bhutan and Bangladesh.

Status: The sloth bear is listed as vulnerable on the World Conservation Union’s Red List of Threatened Animals.

Habitat: Sloth bears reside in a variety of dry and wet forests, and in addition in a good deal of grasslands, at which boulders and scattered shrubs and trees find shelter.

Natural Diet: When trees are in fruit, for the most part for the duration of the monsoon season, sloth bears dine on mango, fig, ebony, and a greater amount of fruits, and furthermore on a couple of flowers. However, ants and termites, dug out of this cement-hard nest mounds, are a year-round staple. Also, sloth bears climb trees and knock decreased honeycombs, later on collecting the ass bounty on the forest floor. Beetles, grubs, ants, and larger number of insects sweet out such a diet. During food shortages, sloth bears may eat carrion. They sometimes raid farm crops.

Zoo Diet: The Zoo’s sloth bears eat insects, mealworms, and crickets, as agreeably as these types of fruits as pears, melons, oranges, and grapes.

Reproduction: Sloth bears mate over the hot season-May, June, and July-and females generally end up with birth to two cubs six to seven cycles later. Cubs are born in an underground den, and keep there for most months. After emerging of the den, cubs continue at such a mother’s part for two to 3 ages before going out off on this own.

Life Span: It is unknown how for a while now sloth bears make a home in the wild. But such bears experience lived up to 40 ages in zoos.

Behavior: Active normally at night, the sloth bear is a noisy, busy bear. It grunts and snorts as it pulls lower branches to get fruit, digs for termites, or snuffles underneath debris for grubs and beetles. A sloth bear uses its lips as if a vacuum, bringing about rapid, loud “kerfump” noises as it sucks insects out of the nests.

Sloth bears cause solitary lives, and many are nocturnal. (In safe areas, properties may be active in the day.) If threatened, these kinds of smallish bears may stand on two legs, brandishing this clawed forepaws as weapons.

A Few Sloth Bear Neighbors:

Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris tigris): At the top of the forest food chain, right now mighty, endangered cat slinks throughout the shadows in searching of spotted deer and more and more prey, that sometimes includes sloth bears.

Gaur (Bos frontalis): A massive, forest-dwelling demented ox overly livlihoods in miniature herds and feeds in clearings at night.

Lion-tailed macaque (Macaca silenus): An endangered, black-coated monkey in a distinctive gray mane and dangling tail. Troops of 12 to 20 inhabit tropical evergreen forests in India’s Western Ghats mountains.

Great pied hornbill (Buceros bicornis): A vulture-sized black, white, and cream-colored fruit-eating bird providing a massive, toucan-like bill.

Posted under Amazing Animals, Animals Pictures, The Animals, Zoo Animals by admin on Monday 6 October 2008 at 6:02 am

Australia’s Amazing Animals

Meet a cast of cool critters from the Land Down Under!Where in the world can you find an animal that shoots venom from its ankle, a lizard with “water pipes” on its skin, and a “bear” that isn’t a bear? Think Australia, home to creatures like the platypus, the thorny devil, and the koala. How did they end up (or down) there?

“Ancestors of these animals evolved millions of years ago, when the island belonged to a supercontinent called Gondwana,” explains Michael Archer, a zoologist (animal scientist) and director of the Australian Museum in Sydney. This vast landmass once consisted of what is now Australia, Antarctica, South America, Africa, and India. Over 100 million years, the ceaseless shifting of continental plates (slabs of Earth’s crust) caused the landmass to rupture and break apart. “Between 45 and 38 million years ago, Australia severed its last ties to Gondwana to become the island continent it is today,” Archer says.

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More » Surrounded by water, many Australian animals have evolved in total isolation. “In Africa and South America, for example, lion populations swapped back and forth each time sea levels lowered,” says Archer. But on the remote island of Australia, animals evolved undisturbed over eons of time, gradually developing into species found nowhere else on Earth. Today, some of these species face unprecedented threats–like shrinking habitats and diminishing food supplies due to urbanization and pollution. Read on and meet some of these amazing creatures.

What has four legs, a furry body, beady eyes, a wide beaverlike tail, a duck’s bill, and webbed feet? When scientist George Shaw at the British Museum first laid eyes on a preserved platypus in 1799, he didn’t know what it was. Shaw thought somebody had surgically attached miscellaneous animal parts together as a joke, and even tried to pry the bill off!

Even stranger, the female platypus, unlike other mammals (warm-blooded animals that nurse their young with milk), lacks teats or milk-dispensing nipples. Instead, a platypus mom secretes milk through pores in her belly. And rather than carry her young internally, she lays eggs!

These two biological traits are so rare in mammals that scientists classify the platypus, (along with one other Aussie animal in the world, the echidna) as monotremes (meaning “one hole”). Both creatures possess a single cavity or cloaca, through which they expel eggs, feces (solid waste), and urine—a characteristic usually associated with reptiles.

Since the platypus is nocturnal, or active at night, a big challenge for scientists is to find one in the first place. The animal spends most of its active hours diving underwater for food. Researchers have found that the solitary platypus swims in night waters with eyes and ears shut! How does it find food or avoid smashing into rocks? The rubbery bill is pressure-sensitive and can detect obstacles ahead. It’s also packed with electro-receptors (nerve endings sensitive to electric currents) that can zero in on weak electrical signals produced by moving prey: aquatic invertebrates, or animals without backbones, like crayfish and shrimps.

When not splashing in water, the platypus snoozes–up to 17 hours a day in underground burrows dug by rivers in eastern Australia and Tasmania. Locating the burrows is no small feat for researchers. “The entrances are usually well disguised,” says Melody Serena of the Australian Platypus Conservancy.

The creatures are even harder to spot now, since water pollution is causing the platypus to struggle with habitat loss. But a recent waterway cleanup has drawn platypuses to a most unlikely place: Melbourne–Australia’s second largest city. To find them “living near busy roads and factories has been a very exciting discovery,” Serena says. This spells encouragement for environmentalists.

Another creature-feature: the adult male platypus is one of the only venomous (poisonous) mammals in the world. On each ankle lies a sharp, hollow, 15 nun (0.6 in.)-long spur that secretes venom produced by a thigh gland. Venom comes in handy when males compete for mates. Ouch!

CALL ME: UGLY

Australia boasts nearly 750 species of snakes and lizards, and in the continent’s harsh interior desert these critters must devise survival “smarts” to avoid becoming chow for crafty predators. Meet one lizard whose survival strategy is to look so scary it’s named the thorny devil.

To scare off larger lizards, the thorny devil inflates itself with air and “puffs up” with a threatening display of spiky skin. But the thorny devil is only 10 to 15 cm (4 to 6 in.)long, slow moving, and basically a coward–when really scared, the lizard tucks its head between its front legs. Then a knoblike spiny protrusion on the back of its neck comes to the rescue to sit in place of the real head! “This certainly makes thorny devils hard to swallow for most predators, even snakes,” says Eric Pianka, a herpetologist (expert in reptiles) at the University of Texas at Austin.

Source:findarticle

Posted under Amazing Animals by admin on Wednesday 7 May 2008 at 4:01 am

List of extinct animals of Africa

List of animals, AfricaThe list of extinct animals in Africa features the animals that have become extinct on the African continent and its islands, like Madagascar, Mauritius, Rodrigues, Réunion, Seychelles, St. Helena, Cape Verde, etc.

Pleistocene Extinctions

* African Deinotherium, Deinotherium bozasi
* homo erectus
* homo habilis
* Paranthropus boisei
* Pelorovis

List of animals, AfricaGlobal Holocene Extinctions

Mammals
Quagga from London (UK), Regent’s Park ZOO, 1870
Quagga from London (UK), Regent’s Park ZOO, 1870

* North African Elephant, Loxodonta africana pharaoensis (300, North Africa)
* Algerian Wild Ass, Asinus atlanticus (300, North Africa)
* Bluebuck or Blue Antelope, Hippotragus leucophaeus (1799, South Africa)
* Atlas Bear, Ursus arctos crowtheri (1844, North Africa)
* Lesser Mascarene Flying Fox, Pteropus subniger (1862, Réunion)
* Quagga, Equus quagga quagga (1883, South Africa)
* Cape Warthog, Phacochoerus aethiopicus aethiopicus (1900, South Africa)
* North African Aurochs, Bos primigenius mauretanicus (Unknown date, North Africa)
* Bubal Hartebeest, Alcelaphus buselaphus buselaphus (North Africa)
* Cape Serval, Leptailurus serval serval (South Africa)
* Madagascan Dwarf Hippopotamus, Hippopotamus lemerlei (Madagascar)
* Madagascan Pygmy Hippopotamus, Hippopotamus madagascariensis (Madagascar)
* North African Serval, Leptailurus serval constantina (North Africa)
* Red Gazelle, Gazella rufina (Algeria)
* Robert’s Lechwe, Kobus leche robertsi (Zambia)
* Canary Islands Giant Rat, Canariomys tamarani (Canary Islands)
* Lava Mouse, Malpaisomys insularis (Canary Islands)

Birds
Dodo (Jan Savery, 1651)
Dodo (Jan Savery, 1651)

* Aldabra Brush-Warbler, Nesillas aldabrana (Seychelles)
* Aepyornis or Great Elephant Bird, Aepyornis maximus (Madagascar)
* Ascension Flightless Crake, Atlantisia elpenor (St Helena)
* Broad-billed Parrot, Lophopsittacus mauritianus (Mauritius)
* Delalande’s Coua, Coua delalandei (Madagascar)
* Dodo, Raphus cucullatus (Mauritius)
* Large St Helena Petrel, Pterodroma rupinarum (St Helena)
* Mauritius Blue Pigeon, Alectroenas nitidissima (Mauritius)
* Mascarene Coot, Fulica newtoni (Réunion, Mauritius)
* Mascarene Parrot, Mascarinus mascarinus (Réunion)
* Mauritian Duck, Anas theodori (Mauritius)
* Mauritian Shelduck, Alopochen mauritianus (Mauritius)
* Mauritius Grey Parrot, Lophopsittacus bensoni (Mauritius)
* Mauritius Night-Heron, Nycticorax mauritianus (Mauritius)
* Mauritius Owl, Mascarenotus sauzieri (Mauritius)
* Newton’s Parakeet, Psittacula exsul (Mauritius)
* Red Rail, Aphanapteryx bonasia (Mauritius)
* Réunion Flightless Ibis, Threskiornis solitarius (Réunion)
* Réunion Gallinule, Porphyrio coerulescens (Réunion)
* Réunion Kestrel, Falco buboisi (Réunion)
* Réunion Night-Heron, Nycticorax duboisi (Réunion)
* Réunion Owl, Mascarenotus grucheti (Réunion)
* Réunion Pigeon, Columba duboisi (Réunion)
* Réunion Shelduck, Mascarenachen kervazoi (Réunion)
* Réunion Starling, Fregilupus varius (Réunion)
* Rodrigues Night-Heron, Nycticorax megacephalus (Mauritius)
* Rodrigues Owl, Mascarenotus murivorus (Mauritius)
* Rodrigues Parrot, Necropsittacus rodericanus (Mauritius)
* Rodrigues Pigeon, Alectroenas rodericana (Mauritius)
* Rodrigues Rail, Aphanapteryx leguati (Mauritius)
* Rodrigues Solitaire, Pezophaps solitaria (Mauritius)
* Rodrigues Starling, Necropsar rodericanus (Mauritius)
* Seychelles Parakeet, Psittacula wardi (Seychelles)
* Small St Helena Petrel, Bulweria bifax (St Helena)
* St Helena Crake, Atlantisia podarces (St Helena)
* St Helena Cuckoo, Nannococcyx psix (St Helena)
* St Helena Dove, Dysmoropelia dekarchiskos (St Helena)
* St Helena Hoopoe, Upupa antaois (St Helena)
* St Helena Rail, Porzana astrictocarpus (St Helena)
* Tristan Moorhen, Gallinula nesiotis (St Helena)
* Canarian Black Oystercatcher, Haematopus meadewaldoi 1981 (Tenerife)
* Canary Islands Quail, Coturnix gomerae (Canary Islands)
* Eastern Canary Islands Chiffchaff, Phylloscopus canariensis exsul 1986 (Lanzarote, Fuerteventura)
* Madeiran Wood Pigeon, Columba palumbus maderensis 1924 (Madeira)

Reptiles

* Cape Verde Giant Skink, Macroscincus coctei (Cape Verde)
* Eastwood’s Longtailed Seps, Tetradactylus eastwoodae (South Africa)
* Leiolopisma mauritiana (Mauritius)
* Saddle-backed Mauritius Giant Tortoise, Cylindraspis inepta (Mauritius)
* Domed Mauritius Giant Tortoise, Cylindraspis triserrata (Mauritius)
* Mozambique centipede-eater, Aparallactus nigriceps (Mozambique)
* Réunion Giant Tortoise, Cylindraspis indica (Réunion)
* Rodrigues Giant Gecko, Phelsuma gigas (Mauritius)
* Domed Rodrigues Giant Tortoise, Cylindraspis peltastes (Mauritius)
* Saddle-backed Rodrigues Giant Tortoise, Cylindraspis vosmaeri (Mauritius) 1795
* Round Island Burrowing Boa, Bolyeria multocarinata (Mauritius)
* Seychelles Black Terrapin, Pelusios seychellensis (Seychelles)
* Typhlops cariei (Mauritius)
* Rodrigues giant day gecko Phelsuma gigas (Mauritius)
* Rodrigues day gecko, Phelsuma edwardnewtoni 1917 (Mauritius)
* Roque Chico de Salmor Giant Lizard, Gallotia simonyi simonyi 1935 (Canary Islands)
* La Palma Giant Lizard, Gallotia auaritae (La Palma, Canary Islands)

Fish

* Pantanodon madagascariensis (Madagascar)
* Ptychochromis onilahy (Madagascar)
* Ptychochromoides itasy (Madagascar)

Insects

* St. Helena Earwig, Labidura herculeana (1967 St. Helena)

Molluscs

* Caldwellia philyrina
* Chilonopsis blofeldi
* Chilonopsis exulatus
* Chilonopsis helena
* Chilonopsis melanoides
* Chilonopsis nonpareil
* Chilonopsis subplicatus
* Chilonopsis subtruncatus
* Chilonopsis turtoni
* Colparion madgei
* Ctenoglypta newtoni
* Cyclophorus horridulum
* Cyclosurus mariei
* Dupontia proletaria
* Erepta nevilli
* Gibbus lyonetianus
* Gonidomus newtoni
* Gonospira nevilli
* Gulella mayottensis
* Harmogenanina linophora
* Harmogenanina subdetecta
* Helenoconcha leptalea
* Helenoconcha minutissima
* Helenoconcha polyodon
* Helenoconcha pseustes
* Helenoconcha sexdentata
* Helenodiscus bilamellata
* Helenodiscus vernoni
* Nesopupa turtoni
* Omphalotropis plicosa
* Pachnodus velutinus
* Pachystyla rufozonata
* Pseudohelenoconcha spurca
* Pupilla obliquicosta
* Rhachis comorensis
* Rhachis sanguineus
* Tropidophora desmazuresi
* Tropidophora semilineata
* Unio cariei
* Leiostyla lamellosa (Land Snail from Madeira)
* Pseudocampylaea loweii (Land Snail from Madeira)

Rediscovered

* Burchell’s Zebra, Equus quagga burchellii
* Coelacanth, Latimeria chalumnae
* Madagascar Pochard, Aythya innotata

List of animals, AfricaExtinctions in the wild
Scimitar-Horned Oryx at the Wildlife Ranch in San Antonio, Texas, USA.
Scimitar-Horned Oryx at the Wildlife Ranch in San Antonio, Texas, USA.

* Barbary Lion, Panthera leo leo, (North Africa)
* Egyptian Barbary Sheep, Ammotragus lervia ornata (Egypt)
* Cape Lion, Panthera leo melanochaitus (Cape of Africa)
* Haplochromis lividus (Freshwater fish from Lake Victoria; Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda)
* Labrochromis ishmaeli (Freshwater fish from Lake Victoria; Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda)
* Scimitar Oryx, Oryx dammah (Algeria, Burkina Faso, Chad, Egypt, Israel, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sudan, Tunisia, Western Sahara)
* Paretroplus menarambo (Freshwater fish from Madagascar)
* Platytaeniodus degeni (Freshwater fish from Lake Victoria; Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda)
* Prognathochromis perrieri (Freshwater fish from Lake Victoria; Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda)
* Yssichromis argens (Freshwater fish from Lake Victoria; Tanzania)

Source: Wikipedia