Category Archives: Animals

Mountain gorillas are powerful but shy.

• Mountain gorillas are one of the largest primates in the world, and are native to eastern and central areas of Africa, specifically in the Virunga mountains in Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda, and Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park.
• Mountain gorillas are a type of Eastern gorilla, or Gorilla beringei, from the Gorilla genus, that come from the family Hominidae, the family of great apes.
• Mountain gorillas have black coloured long, thick fur, and range from 100 to 220 kilograms (220 to 490 pounds) in weight and can stand as tall as 1.2 to 1.9 metres (4 to 6.2 feet).
• Mountain gorillas are the smallest out of the two Eastern gorilla subspecies, and have the scientific name Gorilla beringei beringei, and the males are often known as ‘silverbacks’ due to the fur on their back that changes to a silver or gray colour as they grow older.
• Mountain gorillas are commonly found in dormant volcanic mountainous regions, at elevations of 2,200 to 4,300 metres (7,200 to 14,100 feet).

Mountain Gorilla Image courtesy of David Bacon/Flickr

• Mountain gorillas typically live in groups of ten or more, often with a dominant male and many females, and live, on average, up to 35 years.
• A mountain gorilla’s diet mainly consists of vegetation, up to 34 kilograms (75 pounds) a day, and vertebrates of small size.
• Mountain gorillas are classified as critically endangered, with only 800 to 1000 individuals left in the wild, due to poaching, disease, war and habitat loss.
• Mountain gorillas have been shown to be afraid of caterpillars and chameleons, and have a dislike of water.
• The young of mountain gorillas hang onto their mothers’ back for up to 3 years, from approximately 4 months old.

Bibliography: Mountain Gorilla, 2014, National Geographic, http://animals.nationalgeographic.com.au/animals/mammals/mountain-gorilla/

Mountain Gorilla, 2014, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_gorilla

Snowy owls are quite cool.

• Snowy owls are large owls from the Strigidae family, the family of true owls, and have the scientific name Bubo scandiacus.
• The snowy owl is native to northern Eurasia and northern parts of North America, and is also known as a ‘Great white owl’, ‘Ghost owl’, ‘Snow owl’, ‘Arctic owl’, ‘Ermine owl’, ‘Ookpik’, ‘Tundra ghost’, ‘White terror of the north’, ‘Highland tundra owl’, and ‘Scandinavian nightbird’.
• Snowy owls have yellow eyes; beaks that are black; and feathers coloured white, with black markings, and females look darker and have more prominent markings.
• Snowy owls grow to be 52 to 71 centimetres (20 to 28 inches) in height, and have a wingspan of 125 to 150 centimetres (49 to 59 inches).
• Snowy owls typically weigh 1.6 to 3 kilograms (3.5 to 6.6 pounds)and have an average lifespan of 9.5 years, although in captivity they can live up to 35 years.

Snowy Owl
Image courtesy of David Mitchell/Flickr

• Snowy owls build their nest on or near the ground, preferably on a high spot like a boulder or mound with a good view, generally by scraping the ground with their talons, and sometimes they use nests of other birds.
• Female snowy owls produce from three to eleven white eggs in one clutch, and the eggs do not hatch all at once.
• A snowy owls’ diet includes rodents, birds, fish and small mammals, although it mainly consists of lemmings that they swallow whole, with each owl consuming three to five per day, or more than 1600 in a year, while their young usually need two per day.
• Snowy owls’ nests are preyed on by dogs, foxes, wolves and birds, however, the male owl usually stands guard, and both will launch an attack to defend their nest and young.
• Snowy owls, are different to most owls, in that they generally hunt during daylight hours.

Bibliography:
Snowy Owl, 2014, National Geographic, http://animals.nationalgeographic.com.au/animals/birds/snowy-owl/

Snowy Owl, 2014, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowy_owl

Lewis D, Snowy Owl – Bubo Sacndiacus, 2013, The Owl Pages, http://www.owlpages.com/owls.php?genus=Bubo&species=scandiacus

Snowy Owl, 2013, Defenders of Wildlife, http://www.defenders.org/snowy-owl/basic-facts

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Swim away! Swim away! Swim away from the great white shark!

• Great white sharks are large grey sharks with white on the underside, often depicted as vicious man eaters, and are found in most oceans in the world, near coastal areas.
• ‘Great white sharks’ are also known as ‘white sharks’, ‘great whites’, ‘white deaths’, and ‘white pointers’.
• Great white sharks typically grow to be 4 to 6.4 metres (13 to 21 feet) in length, although some have said to be up to 8 metres (26 feet) long.
• Great white sharks can swim at speeds of 56 kilometres per hour (35 miles per hour), and can dive to depths of 1,200 metres (3,940 feet).
• The scientific name of a great white shark is Carcharodon carcharias, and it is the only living member of its genus, Carcharodon, from the family Lamnidae, the family of white or mackerel sharks.

Great White Shark
Image courtesy of Hermanus Backpackers/Flickr

• Great white sharks typically weigh 680 to 2,268 kilograms (1,500 to 5,000 pounds), with a record believed to be 3,324 kilograms (7328 pounds).
• Great white sharks typically prey on animals with a high fat and energy content, including large fish, dolphins, whales, seals, turtles and birds, and are said to sometimes take a ‘taste’ bite first to check the suitability of its food, and they are occasionally preyed on by fellow great whites and orcas.
• Although great white sharks have performed significant unprovoked and fatal attacks on people, humans are not favourable to sharks due to the high bone content and little fat contained in the human body.
• Great white sharks do not survive well in captivity, and have a life span of up to at least 70 years, originally believed to be 30 years, although, due to overfishing, net trapping and the like, they are classified as vulnerable.
• There is often dominance between great white sharks, which may attack or warn fellow sharks by biting, if they come too close.

Bibliography: Great White Shark, 2014, National Geographic, http://animals.nationalgeographic.com.au/animals/fish/great-white-shark/

Great White Shark, 2014, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_white_shark

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Lazy, slow moving three-toed sloths have fascinating habits.

• Three-toed sloths are mammals that live in trees and are native to Central and northern areas of South America.
• Three-toed sloths are from the Bradypodidae family and are the sole members, and their scientific name is Bradypus, of which there are four species.
• The average movement speed of three-toed sloths is 0.24 kilometres per hour (0.15 miles per hour) and they are deemed the slowest moving mammal on earth.
• Three-toed sloths have a typical lifespan of 25 to 30 years, and grow to be 45 to 58 centimetres (18 to 23 inches) in length, and 3.5 to 4.5 kilograms (8 to 10 pounds) in weight.
• Although similar, three-toed sloths are in a different family to the two-toed sloths, both of which are distantly related to anteaters, and the differences include three-toed having three fingered hands and a short tail, while the quantity of toes is the same.

Three-toed Sloth
Image courtesy of D Culbert/Flickr

• Three-toed sloths are generally more active during daylight, unlike two-toed sloths, spending most of their time in trees, and they do not move efficiently on the ground and therefore only visit the ground approximately once a week, mostly for toileting purposes, to avoid predators like large members of the cat family.
• Three-toed sloths have a brown, black or white variegated fur colour, often mottled with green algae that grows on their fur, and their colourings provide camouflage among trees.
• Three-toed sloths can sleep up to 20 hours a day, communicate with long ‘ah-ee’ sounds, and are able to rotate their head up to 270 degrees due to their additional neck vertebrae.
• Three-toed sloths’ legs lack significant muscle and therefore use front claws to drag themselves along or to cling to branches, but they are efficient swimmers.
• Individual three-toed sloths are typically dedicated to a single tree species, moving up to four times from tree to tree during the day, and their diet consists primarily of leaves, fruit and sprouting twigs, though digestion is a slow process, and a meal can take as long as a month to fully digest.

Bibliography:
Sen N, Fun Facts about Sloths, 2013,Living Science, http://www.livescience.com/27612-sloths.html

Three-toed Sloth, 2014, National Geographic, http://animals.nationalgeographic.com.au/animals/mammals/three-toed-sloth/

Three-toed Sloth, 2014, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-toed_sloth

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