Tag Archives: Asia

White Poplar

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White Poplar

White poplars are very popular.

  • White poplars are deciduous trees from the poplar species and are native to central Europe and Asia.
  • White poplars were originally known as ‘abeles’ and are also known as ‘silverleaf poplars’ and ‘silver poplars’.
  • The scientific name for white poplars is ‘Populus alba’ and is from the family Salicaceae, the family of willows.
  • White poplars are quick growing trees and grow best in sunny areas and in moist soil.
  • White poplars grow to be a height of 16 to 27 metres (52.5 to 88.6 feet) and have leaves that are green on the top side, and are white and furry underneath, making it an eye-catching tree.

White poplar, plant, tree, Australia, Drive, Road, Park, Grass, Ten Random Facts

  • White poplars have greenish, greyish and whitish trunks that can have a notable pattern of dark coloured diamonds, although as the tree ages, the trunk can be quite rough and dark coloured.
  • White poplar flowers are up to 8 cm (3 inch) long cylindrical clusters known as ‘catkins’, with the female flowers being a yellow green colour, and the males are grey boasting a red stigma, and each tree only grows one gender of flower.
  • White poplars have been introduced into North America, South Africa and Australia, and in some states and countries have become invasive.
  • White poplar bark contains a chemical called salicylate, that can be used in aspirin medicine, and the bark can have yellow die extracted from it.
  • The inner bark and leaves of white poplars can be eaten, either made into a flour for bread or eaten raw, but they are not commonly used.

 

Bibliography:
Populus Alba – L, 2012, Plants for a Future, http://www.pfaf.org/user/Plant.aspx?LatinName=Populus+alba
Populus Alba, 2013, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Populus_alba

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Komodo Dragon

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Komodo Dragon

Komodo dragons do not fly.

  • ‘Komodo dragons’ are also called ‘komodo monitors’ and ‘komodo island monitors’.
  • Komodo dragons are native to some of the Lesser Sunda islands of Indonesia, Asia, and were not known to the western world until the early 1900s.
  • Komodo dragons are from the family Varanidae, the family of monitor lizards, and have the scientific name ‘Varanus komodoensis’.
  • Komodo dragons are the world’s largest species of lizard not extinct, and are vulnerably threatened, particularly by human hunting, with approximately 3000 to 5000 in the wild.
  • Komodo dragons can grow up to 3 metres (10 feet) in length and 70 kilograms (150 pounds) in weight, although some are much heavier and can be more than double this in weight.
Komodo Dragon, Lizard, Islands of Rinca, Indonesia, Brown, Scale, Ten Random Facts, Flickr
Komodo Dragon
Image courtesy of Austronesian Expeditions/Flickr
  • Komodo dragons have bluey grey scales that are hard and sturdy and a forked tongue that is yellow, and numerous bacteria in their saliva that causes death in their prey.
  • Komodo dragons have an excellent sense of smell, one ear bone causing it to have a restricted hearing range, and it can see up to 300 metres (980 feet) away.
  • Komodo dragons live in habitats of grasslands, savannahs and forests, in areas that are hot and dry.
  • A komodo dragon’s diet consists of birds, mammals, reptiles, insects and the meat of dead animals, and can, in one feeding, eat up to 80% of its own weight.
  • Komodo dragon females lay an average of 20 eggs in a mound or a hole, that generally hatch in April.
Bibliography:
Komodo Dragon, 2014, National Geographic, http://animals.nationalgeographic.com.au/animals/reptiles/komodo-dragon/
Komodo Dragon, 2014, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komodo_dragon

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Clove

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Clove

Cloves add another interesting flavour.

  • Cloves are the unopened and dried flower buds of the clove tree, Syzygium aromaticum, that belongs to the myrtle family, Myrtaceae.
  • Cloves are native to some of the Maluku Islands in Indonesia, and one of the biggest producers of the spice now is Africa’s Pamba Island.
  • Cloves appear to be small nails, and the name comes from Latin ‘clavus’, meaning nail, and they are sometimes used with an orange to make pomanders.
  • Cloves are popularly used as a spice in dishes of meat, curry, marinade and fruit, as well as baked goods, commonly in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
  • Cloves contain the chemical eugenol, which produces approximately 85% of the strong flavour.

Clove, Brown, Whole, Ten Random Facts, Bowl, Australia, Spice, Flower bud

  • Cloves have been used in some cigarettes and can be used to repel ants.
  • Cloves and their oil are sometimes used in medicine as a painkiller for toothaches.
  • In the 1600s and 1700s, the Dutch East India Company had a monopoly on the growing and trading of cloves in Indonesia, and in 1770, Pierre Poivre, a French horticulturalist, secretly obtained some seedlings from the spice trees from Indonesia, which he eventually introduced to the islands of Mauritius and Réunion.
  • Cloves are very high in manganese, and they also contain vitamin K and vitamin C, as well as small quantities of other minerals and vitamins.
  • Cloves can be bought ground or whole, and the ground spice loses its flavour quickest.
Bibliography:
Clove, 2014, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clove
Cloves, 2014, The World’s Healthiest Foods, http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=69

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Greater Flamingo

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Greater Flamingo

Tall, pink flamingos are greater flamingos.

  • Greater flamingos have the scientific name Phoenicopterus roseus, and are from the wading bird family, Phoenicopteridae, that only consists of six species of flamingos.
  • Greater flamingos are native to areas in Africa, Europe’s south and South Asia.
  • Greater flamingos are titled as the world’s largest flamingo, with figures of approximately 110 to 150 centimetres (43 to 60 inches) in height and 2 to 4 kilograms (4.4 to 8.8 pounds) in weight; with records of 187 cm (just over 6 feet) and 4.5 kg (10 lb).
  • Greater flamingos have red feathers in some areas, and black flight feathers, but they are well known for their pink-white feathers that are best seen when the bird is standing, although flamingos are born with white and grey feathers that are absent of pink colouration for two years or more.
  • Greater flamingos obtain their pink coloured body and plumage by eating organisms that contain carotenoid pigments, that are mostly found in the algae they eat, and if their diet consists mostly of algae, they will be a deeper colour pink than those that feed mainly on shrimp and the like.

Greater Flamingo, Pink, White, Adult, One Leg Full, Zoo, Bronx Zoo, New York, United States, statuesque, Ten Random Facts, National Geographic

Adult Flamingo
Image courtesy of National Geographic
  • The Greater flamingo’s diet mainly consists of shrimp, tiny fish, seeds, blue-green algae and other algae, molluscs and plankton, and they obtain their food by filtering the food from water in their bill.
  • Greater flamingos can live to be over 60 years old in captivity, with the oldest Greater in captivity dying at an age of around 83 years old in Australia’s Adelaide Zoo, in early 2014.
  • The tongues of Greater flamingos were historically eaten luxuriously by Roman emperors.
  • Greater flamingos generally live in colonies, which helps to protect them from predators, that can be as large as a thousand or more birds, in habitats of lakes, particularly alkaline lakes, and mudflats.
  • When calling, greater flamingos produce a sound like a honk of a goose, and they lay one white egg per season in a nest of mud.
Bibliography:
Greater Flamingo, 2014, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Flamingo
Greater Flamingo, n.d, Adelaide Zoo, http://www.zoossa.com.au/adelaide-zoo/animals-exhibits/animals/birds?species=Greater%20Flamingo

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Buxus

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Buxus

Grow a hedge of buxus.

  • Buxus is a group of evergreen plants that contain 70 species that are native to parts of Europe, Asia, America and Africa.
  • Buxus suit a wide range of conditions and are generally best grown in full sun, although shady conditions can be tolerated by some species.
  • ‘Buxus’ is also known as ‘boxwood’ and ‘box’, and comes from the family Buxaceae, the box family.
  • Buxus are shrubs or small trees that grow to a height of 2 metres to a maximum of 15 metres (6.5 to 50 feet) in height, depending on the species and whether the plant is clipped to contain its size.
  • Buxus have flowers that are small and coloured in yellow-green shades, that generally appear in spring.

Buxus, boxwood, plant, hedge, white, green, Ten Random Facts, Australia

  • Buxus are slow growing and are popularly used as a decorative plant, particularly as hedges, topiary or bonsai.
  • Buxus plants have very good quality, hard wood, which is denser than water, and has historically been used to make boxes, chess pieces, printing using woodblocks, and musical instruments and parts, particularly form the strings and woodwind class and is still used for many of these purposes today.
  • Small branches of Buxus have been found in Ancient Romans’ tombs.
  • Buxus sometimes have a scent of a fox or cat urine, which displeases some people.
  • Buxus leaves have a low level of toxicity if consumed, although it can be fatal for small animals.
Bibliography:
Boxwood, n.d, BCI, http://www.bonsai-bci.com/files/Boxwood.pdf
Buxus, 2013, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buxus

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Proboscis Monkey

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Proboscis Monkey

Proboscis monkeys: unusual monkeys, unusual facts.

  • ‘Proboscis monkeys’ are also known as ‘long-nosed monkeys’, and in the Malay language, ‘bekantan’ and ‘monyet belanda’, the latter literally meaning ‘Dutch monkey’, referring to the perceived appearance of some Dutchmen.
  • Proboscis monkeys are endangered primates from the family Cercopithecidae, the family of Old World monkeys and they can only be found in the wild on Asia’s Borneo, an island that has regions that belong to Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei.
  • Proboscis monkeys can grow to be 53 to 76 centimetres (21 to 30 inches) in height and typically weigh 16 to 22.5 kilograms (35 to 50 pounds) in males or 7 to 12 kilograms (15 to 26 pounds) in females, and greater weights for both genders have been recorded.
  • Proboscis monkeys have a fur coat that differs in colour, that can include orange shades, red-brown, yellow-brown and shades of grey in colour.
  • Male proboscis monkeys have exceptionally large noses, growing up to at least 10 centimetres (3.9 inches) in length, that are believed to be used to project sound, and both genders have protruding bellies.

Proboscis Monkey, Male, Sitting in tree, big nose, primate, Ten Random Facts, National Geographic, Borneo, Malaysia,

Male Proboscis Monkey
Image courtesy of National Geographic

  • Proboscis monkeys generally live in single-male or male-only bands or harems, of up to 60 and 19 monkeys respectively, and the females give birth to their young most commonly during night or early in the morning.
  • Proboscis monkeys are preyed on by leopards, monitor lizards, pythons, eagles and crocodiles.
  • Proboscis monkeys usually live a close distance to water, usually in forests near rivers, oceans, and swamps, and they have webbed feet and are accomplished swimmers, reaching depths of 20 metres (65.5 feet), sometimes ‘belly flopping’ into the water from trees.
  • Proboscis monkeys commonly use honk noises to vocalize when communicating, although they use roaring or snarling sounds when aggressive.
  • Proboscis monkeys’ diet mainly consists of fruit, seeds, and leaves, and the fruit is usually eaten when it is not ripe due to the sugar content in ripe fruit that can cause death due to bloating.
Bibliography:
Proboscis Monkey, 2014, National Geographic, http://animals.nationalgeographic.com.au/animals/mammals/proboscis-monkey/
Proboscis Monkey, 2014, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proboscis_monkey

 

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