Enjoy.
Every month I will write about a new creature I deem EPIC. Feel free to recommend a creature if you think it is epic enough.
Thursday, 30 June 2011
Sorry
I regret to inform you that due to being very busy this week that I was not able to make a post but I will leave you with a talking dog.
Thursday, 23 June 2011
Sugar Gliders
These little cute bug eaters are a request by a good friend…What eats bugs, drinks sap, looks like a squirrel with big eyes and can glide? The sugar gliders! They get their name for their love of tree sap. There are a few unique things about these little critters, which I will share with you.
Sugar gliders are actually gliding possums (it is a good thing they do not look like a possum), they are mostly a greyish colour on their backs and sides with black stripes in various places. There is usually a black line that goes from between their eyes to their lower back. The tail fades from grey to black as you get closer to the tip. Sugar gliders bellies, chest and neck are a cream colour, they have big black eyes and they are (as a lot of people would say when they see a picture of them) CUTE! Sugar gliders will have all people around the world go "aaaawwwwwwww". Sugar gliders have a prehensile tail which means that can grip and hold things with their tails and they have pouches, as they are marsupials.
Sugar gliders eat bugs, some plants, fruit and tree sap so they have plenty of food sources. When their food source is scarce they can actually slow down their metabolism, lower their body temperature and use less energy so they need less food, this is a form of hibernation called torpor but they do not good to sleep; they mostly just slow down and not move much.
What makes sugar gliders able to glide are the patagium on each side, this is a thin membrane that extends from the fifth finger to the first toe. They can change direction and speed by adjusting the curvature of the membrane and they can do this by moving their legs and arms. Sugar gliders also have a few scent glands which they use for marking but the males have a scent gland on their forehead that can be seen easily because it is a bald spot, kind of like that balding uncle everyone has.
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So, if you want to see a super cute creature gliding through the skies that has the ability to slow its metabolism down in times of trouble, look no further than the sugar glider!
Thursday, 16 June 2011
Narwhal
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The tusk that grows out of the narwhal’s head is actually a tooth and is very similar to the tusk of an elephant. As the tusk grows it twists and can end up with a straight twist or a wavy twist like a corkscrew. The average male and female have one tusk but 1 in 500 males develop two tusks and in even rarer odds for a female to develop two tusks. The tusk is used like the mane of a lion or the feathers of a peacock, to impress the ladies! The male with the largest and longest tusk gets all the ladies, of course. The tusks are also used to show dominance in social standings, narwhals will rub their tusks together with other narwhals to prove dominance and that is called tusking.
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Just goes to show that sometimes what people thought to be make believe is an actual creature, a whale with a ‘unicorn horn’. Maybe unicorns are real and we just have not found them yet. Just keep searching and nature will always show up with something amazingly epic!
Wednesday, 8 June 2011
Short-beaked Echidna
The echidna is a small animal covered in fur and spines and has a unique snout. A lot more people know a reference to the echidna then they realize…Remember the Knuckles, the red spikey guy from Sonic the Hedgehog? As a kid growing up I didn’t realize that Knuckles is actually an echidna until a friend told me. There are four different types of echidnas in the world; Short-Beaked, Western Long-Beaked, Sir David's Long-Beaked (named after Sir David Attenborough…remember him from the Titan Amur post?) and the Eastern Long-Beaked Echidna. The Echidna is part of the mammal group called monotremes which have a very unique attribute amongst mammals, which I will explain later in this post.
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The echidna has long curved claws on their hind feet, this is helpful to groom between the spines on their back. The echidnas are very prolific diggers and can dig very fast with their powerful front legs. It was once reported by a scientist that an echidna was moving a fridge around in the lab with strength similar to the Hercules beetle. Echidna’s corneas are harder than most mammals and this is to protect again chemicals secreted by insects. Echidnas can live in areas that have high carbon dioxide levels, they slow down their heart rate to conserve oxygen, and this helps them to survive forest fires and living deep in the ground. To further ensure survival, echidnas are good swimmers so a flood does not bother them much. Echidnas have a keen sense of smell, and can sense electricity with their snouts; they also have sensitive optic nerves that has been shown to have visual discrimination and special memory like a rat. The echidna has the largest prefrontal cortex relative to its body size, taking up to 50% of the brain when humans are only 29%, this is part of the brain that controls reasoning and strategy so they have good problem solving skills, like getting through mazes and opening trap doors to get to food. All in all they are quite adapted to survive just about everything, which is good because they do not have a large population.
The echidna is a shy solitary animal expect for mating and raising young. Multiple males will court one female and if she rejects them she will curl into a ball, seems to be their answer to everything they don't like. The male has a two-headed penis with two tips on each side; this increases the likelihood of pregnancy. Once pregnant the female gestation period is 21 to 28 days, which she makes a nursery burrow to rest and raise the puggle (baby) in. After gestation she produces a single rubbery egg around 15mm (0.5in) long into a small pouch under her abdomen. The puggle grows a tooth in the egg that is designed just for cracking the egg and looses it not long after its birth. The egg hatches in about ten days and then since the mother does not have nipples the puggle drinks milk from about 100 to 150 pores on her abdomen. The echidna has been recorded to live as long as 49 years in a zoo and we are not sure how long in the wild. Echidna only live in Australia and New Guinea and is an introduced species to New Zealand; they are not endangered but there are not a lot of them so they can easily become endangered.
If you have not noticed what the very unique attribute is that is ok because they have so many of them. The very unique attribute is that the monotremes are the only mammal to lay eggs, there are only two living mammals that do this and they are the echidna and the duck-billed platypus.
With the spines, claws, unique snout, strength, intelligence, egg laying and many adaptations there are more than enough reasons to call the short-beaked echidna (or any echidna) EPIC!
Thursday, 2 June 2011
Lyre Bird
The Lyre bird is the Little Richard of the animal kingdom! They can mimic any sound they hear, from other birdcalls and camera shutters to chainsaws or car alarms or even people talking. It has quite an epic vocal cord that impersonators would kill for.
The Lyre bird is a ground dwelling Australian bird (they also live in New Zealand) with a unique plumage of coloured tail feathers. There are two species of lyre birds - the Superb lyre bird that can be up to 98cm long and Albert's lyre bird that can be up to 90cm long. They are brown, black or grey with brown or black striped tail feathers.
Male lyre birds call mostly during winter; they make a cleared area to maintain an open arena-mound in dense bush where they will sing and dance to court the females. Once the courting is successful the female will make an untidy nest, lay one egg and be the only one to lay on it for 50 days until it hatches. The female is also the only caretaker for the chick as well.
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