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Monkeys

Monkeys are probably among of the most popular and interesting animals in the world. There are a number of monkey varieties. New world monkeys are distinguished from the old world monkeys of Africa and Asia by certain features of appearance and size. The new world monkeys (platyrrhines) are small to medium-sized. They have wide circular nostrils and long tails, which are prehensile or semi-prehensile. They do not have cheek pouches and buttock pads. Prehensile tails can be called an extra hand that helps a monkey swing, touch and grasp things. Spider monkeys, capuchins, squirrel monkeys, owl and wooly monkeys are some of the new world monkey's representatives.

The Tiger

The tiger lives in the jungles and canebrakes of Asia. Its body markings provide excellent camouflage in long grass.This large carnivore usually hunts at night, spending the greater part of the daylight hours resting in shaded areas to escape the heat. It eats a variety of other creatures, from frogs and turtles, to cattle, monkeys, deer, buffalo, and even the occasional young elephant.Tigers are the largest existing members of the Felidae and are, on average, larger than lions, ranging in weight up to 267 kg.

The Sable Antelope

The handsome sable antelope of eastern and southern Africa belongs to a group called sabre-horned antelopes, because of their long, scimitar-shaped horns. Those of the sable antelope are covered with ring-like ridges.Adult males often reach 1.5 m at the shoulder and can weigh over 270 kg. They are glossy black except for white markings on their face and underparts, with a tufted tail and slight mane. Sable antelopes are gregarious, nomadic animals. They roam the dry acacia country of Africa in large herds, usually led by a master bull, and they feed on grass and plant life.Sable antelopes were much sought by hunters. Ernest Hemingway, who used to hunt sable antelopes, gives an interesting account of their habits in his book, The Green Hills of Africa. Lions are about the only predators strong enough to bring down a healthy sable.

Elephant

There are two types of elephants in this world - the African and the Asian. The adult male is much larger than the adult female.Brownish gray skin has folds and may be one inch thick in places. The African Elephant has a marked dip between its fore and hindquarters giving a concave curvature to its back. Ears are large and fan-like. The trunk has two prehensile protrusions at the tip. Large tusks are present in both sexes. Elephants are digitigrade with pads of fibrous tissue to cushion toe bones. Asian elephants are endangered in the wild, where perhaps only about 30,000 still live in forests of south and southeast Asia.

The polar bear rivals the Kodiak bear as the largest four-footed carnivore on Earth and can live up to 25 years. Although the polar bears coat appears white, each individual hair is actually a clear hollow tube that channels the sun’s energy directly to the bear’s skin and helps it stay warm. The polar bear’s entire body is furred, even the bottom of its paws. That helps prevent bears from slipping on the ice. The polar bear is classified as a marine mammal. Its feet are partially webbed for swimming, and its fur is water-repellent. A formidable predator, it has extremely sharp claws.

The neck is so long the giraffe must spread its front legs apart so its head can reach the ground to drink. It has unusually elastic blood vessels with a series of valves that help offset the sudden buildup of blood (and to prevent fainting) when the head is raised, lowered or swung quickly.The giraffe's high shoulders and sloping back give the impression that its front legs are much longer than the hind legs, but they are in fact only slightly longer. The giraffe (as well as its short-necked relative the okapi from Central African forests) has a distinctive walking gait, moving both legs on one side forward at the same time.
Did You Know............
a)Despite its long neck, the giraffe has only seven vertebrae, exactly the same number as man and most other mammals.
b)Even though giraffes are often seen together in groups, they do not form the complex social groups of many plains species. Theirs are loose associations, constantly changing in make-up.

Panda

High in dense bamboo forests in the misty, rainy mountains of southwestern China lives one of the world’s rarest mammals: the giant panda, also called the panda. Only about 1,000 of these black-and-white relatives of bears survive in the wild.Pandas eat almost nothing but bamboo shoots and leaves. Occasionally they eat other vegetation, fish, or small animals, but bamboo accounts for 99 percent of their diets.Pandas eat fast, they eat a lot, and they spend about 12 hours a day doing it. A panda should have at least two bamboo species where it lives, or it will starve.

Whale

The term whale is ambiguous: it can refer to all cetaceans, to just the larger ones, or only to members of particular families within the order Cetacea. The last definition is the one followed here. Whales are those cetaceans which are neither dolphins (i.e. members of the families Delphinidae or Platanistoidea) nor porpoises. This can lead to some confusion because Orcas ("Killer Whales") and Pilot Whales have "whale" in their name, but they are dolphins for the purpose of classification.

Rhinoceros

The rhinoceros (commonly called rhino for short; plural can be either rhinoceros or rhinoceroses)(rhinoceros is greek. rhino for nose, ceros for horn: horn-nosed.) is any of five surviving species of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. All five species are native to Africa or Asia. Rhinoceros is also one of the genera in this family.The family is characterised by: large size (one of the few remaining megafauna surviving today) with all of the species capable of reaching one tonne or more in weight; a horn on the center of the forehead (sometimes with a second one behind it); herbivorous diet; and a thick protective skin, 1.5-5 cm thick, formed from layers of collagen positioned in a lattice structure. Rhinoceros also have acute hearing and sense of smell, but poor eyesight over any distance.

Thats all folks!

Animals are the greatest treasures, its our duty to protect them, not to hunt them for their skin or meat. I know it was boring reading all the info about these animals (it was boring for me too - writing so much) , but its worth it if anyone could actually try to understand it and change their feelings towards animals. There are a million other animals I havent written about but these are the most endangered. So this is a little information about animals by me, hope you like it. And if any suggestions please mail me or write it in the guest book, so that I can modify it.

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Save & Love Animals (Animals) - Author : Anjana - India

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last update : 2006-10-05

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