Animals World - Other Pets & Animals - Part 4

Wildlife animals are amazing creatures. Learn more about wildlife, birds and sea creatures.
The Emperor Penguin is most noted for its size, reaching up to four feet in height, making it the tallest penguin of its species. Its stomach is white and its wings and back are black, lending its trademark tuxedo look. Although penguins have wings they do not fly, but swim through the water at an average speed of four to six miles per hour, with possible bursts of up to twelve miles per hour. Although water mixed with cold temperatures causes humans to experience hypothermia and even death, penguins have a preen gland which secretes an oil that they use to coat their feathers with so water will run off of them.

Emperor Penguins The largest land mammal on the earth, weighing up to 16,000 pounds, elephants have captivated observers for centuries. Elephants have been used for labor, war, entertainment and hunting. Elephants are one of the most unique animals due to their enormous size and unusual physical characteristics.

African Elephant Wild animals are beautiful creatures with varying sizes, colors, and habitats. Although some can be seen in zoos, the place they are meant to be is in their own environment. Unfortunately, animals such as whales, panda bears and sea otters, are not always safe in these places and are dying out. What is causing their threat of extinction? Several factors have an influence on this growing problem.

Wild Animal Endangerment Few spectacles symbolize autumn better than a gang of Canada Geese crossing a cloudy sky in V-formation. Common throughout most of North America, Canada Geese live around ponds, rivers, and lake shores where they feed on aquatic grass, roots, and young sprouts, as well as corn and grain. A strong inward pull called instinct urges these waterfowl into the skies to make this great annual southward migration. But instinct does not determine the route the birds take. Canada Geese migrate in family groups, and they will travel the same route year after year. The young geese learn the route from their parents, and use the same route in subsequent years with their own young.

Canada Geese “Look, it’s a monkey!” the father says to his son, pointing at the caged chimpanzee sitting with his back to the onlookers. The information sheet posted on the wall corrects the misnomer, but I doubt the man will read it. Sure enough, the pair strolls forward to look at the next ‘monkey,’ which is really an orangutan.

With more than 350 species of primates in the world, I suppose it is easy to get confused over who is who, and what is what. However, as a primate myself I have to wonder if our cousins are as disgusted as we are when we’re mistakenly called by the wrong name, or assumed—because of a resemblance—to be related to someone we dislike. Highly speculative. But in the tradition of political correctness I will endeavor in this article to present a primate primer. I know that a baboon by any name will never smell very sweet, but something about knowing my gorillas from my gibbons puts everything in its proper place, and helps me feel as if the world has order.

Primate Primer The kangaroo is a singular creature. What other animal can jump a distance of 28 feet, or a height of 6 feet? What other animal can hop at speeds of 43 miles per hour? What other animal uses its muscular tail as a third “leg” to help balance and stabilize and holds kickboxing matches to determine breeding rights? There’s only one animal that fits this description—the kangaroo.

Although they’re not the least bit aware of it, caribou have become the subject of a hot political debate that has been boiling over the past five years. It would seem these unobtrusive creatures of the remote arctic tundra and boreal forests of North America and Greenland would be far from the spotlight of national politics, but their future became uncertain when Washington announced plans to open the Alaska National Wilderness Reserve (ANWR) to oil and gas drilling.

To gaze into their eyes is to touch tranquility. Perhaps it is because they spend so much of their lives removed from our terrestrial sphere that these creatures can inspire such serenity in just one glance. Perched in the canopy of the tall Eucalyptus forests of Australia, koalas pass their lives unperturbed, nap to nap, meal to meal.

Koala Kismet What has the beak of a bird, the spines of a hedgehog, the gait of a reptile, the pouch of a marsupial, and the lifespan of an elephant? If you answered an echidna, you are correct! Echidnas may not be the most famous creatures on this planet, but fossils dating back to 100 million years ago prove that they’ve been around a long time. Elusive and enigmatic, these “spiny anteaters” have bewildered scientists and wildlife enthusiasts for centuries.

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Echidnas

While lumbering herds of elephants and stalking Bengal tigers capture the imagination of most animal lovers, we often neglect the nature closest to us. Sometimes we need a reminder that we are part of a habitat, and that the miracle of life exists under our very noses. Educator and naturalist Carolyn Duckworth has said, “If you want to understand and become connected to your environment, keeping a field journal is one of the fastest ways to accomplish this goal.”

How to Observe Wildlife without Leaving Home

It is August on the coast of Iceland, and the air is filled with the deep garbled growls of hundreds of puffins. The social birds have come to shore for the short breeding season, and the rocky banks are dotted with their squat, football-shaped bodies. From the ocean bursts a shiny five-year-old male carrying a dozen small herring in his beak. Flapping his wings mightily, he rises from the waves to the rocky cliffs where a hungry chick waits silently in a burrow hidden in the rocks. The puffin circles the sky above the burrow several times, looking out for herring gulls, which sometimes wait ashore to steal a puffin’s catch.

Puffins, The Parrots of the Sea The sun hangs leaden in the sky over the frozen tundra of the high arctic. Flat expanses of land are dotted with low-growing shrubs dusted with frost. From the south a herd of musk oxen loiter along, digging away the icy surface of the ground to reach nutritious lichen and ground plants, oblivious as eight stealthy white figures move in around them. As the wolves get closer, the herd snaps into action, forming into two rings, with younger calves in the middle protected by the adults facing outward. The circle would be impossible for one wolf to penetrate, so the pack must work as a team. Back and forth race the wolves, snapping at the legs of creatures five times their weight.