Monday 08 March 2010 The Blue wildebeest - lawnmowers of the grasslands

The Blue wildebeest (Connochaetes Taurinus), one of two species of wildebeest, is a large mammal of the Bovid family. Muscular in appearance, this animal moves gracefully on slim legs. Although he has a reputation for stampeding, this animal generally moves quietly, but when spooked can charge across the plain at speeds up to 40 mph.

The silvery, blue luster on his short-haired hide, differentiates him from the plainer, Black wildebeest, and also gives him the distinction of his name. Parenthesis shaped horns adorn the heads of both the male and female wildebeest. Wide at the base while curving out and upward, the male’s horn span can reach 90 cm, 2.95 ft, with the female horns only half that size. Larger than the female, the male can reach a length of 2.5 meters, 7.5 ft, and a weight of 290 kg, 639 lbs, with the female slightly smaller.

Since wildebeests must have daily, lengthy drinks, they should always be within 15 to 25 kilometers of potable water. Because of their need to drink, wildebeests are extremely vulnerable at river crossings. There, they are stalked by their enemies. The main predators of the wildebeest are the crocodile, lion, leopard, cheetah, and the hyena.

The Blue wildebeest inhabits bush-covered and open savannah areas in south and east Africa, favoring a locale that is neither too dry nor too wet. Because wildebeests are grazers they prefer the grasslands of the savannah. Their diet consists mainly of short grass, but sometimes they may eat bark and leaves. The jaw structure, and their wide rows of teeth, prevents them from eating many of the longer types of grasses, compelling them to choose shorter growth. Zebras co-exist with the wildebeest for joint protection, and also allow the wildebeest to benefit from the Zebra’s grazing habits of shearing down tall grass, leaving the choice, shorter shoots behind.

While the herds are mostly migratory, they will follow a seasonal grazing and watering path. Forming some of the largest migratory herds of all animals, the wildebeest will search for more lush grasses once the rainy season has ended. Yet, some wildebeest do not migrate, and prefer to stay in one area year round, forming small herds. Very territorial, the adult males will occupy their piece of ground for a month, or for the whole year, marking the space with dung heaps, gland secretions, and pawing of the ground. Generally, territories cease to exist once the dry season begins.

Africa’s large herds of wildebeest have declined the last few centuries because of human habitat, hunting, and environmental droughts. Fencing, and lack of water due to irrigation and farming, has prevented the wildebeest from migrating and entering its usual seasonal ranges. The Blue wildebeest still numbers over a million, and continues to be wide spread throughout Africa. However because of their diminishing numbers, and fear for their survival, conservation efforts are working to repair damaged grasslands and the problems of excessive fencing.

Picture of the Blue Wildebeest by Profberger, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic You can help spreading the word about this animal by liking it on facebook

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Thursday 04 March 2010 The Squirrel Glider - a gliding flyer

The squirrel glider (Petaurus norfolcensis) is a gliding mammal, somewhat similar to a possum, with a skin membrane covered with fur stretching between its front and hind legs. It’s of the marsupial family Petauridae, and is one of the wrist-winged gliders of the genus Petaurus. The squirrel glider is very similar in appearance to the sugar glider, a smaller relative. Its upper side is a pearl-grey hue and its underside is white. This glider also has a black line from between its eyes down to its lower back. The tail is very long and bushy, with a grey color shading to black at the tip.

The squirrel glider is not a large animal, measuring in at 48 cm (18.9 inches). Of that length, 28 cm (11 inches) belongs to the tail, thus making the tail longer than the body. The weight of an adult averages about 230 grams, or approximately 8 oz (0.5 lbs).

The squirrel glider is able to glide from tree to tree, sometimes even at distances up to 50 meters, or about 164 feet. Generally, they glide shorter distances, though. This enables the glider to avoid predators they would otherwise meet on the ground. Not only can this animal glide using its skin membrane, it can also use its long tail to hold on to branches. However, the tail usually acts as a rudder when the animal is gliding.

The squirrel glider is a nocturnal creature, very active in foraging at night. It typically feeds on such things as tree sap, especially from eucalypt or Red Bloodwood trees; to obtain the sap, the glider gashes the tree trunk with its sharp teeth, causing the sap to flow. The glider also enjoys pollen and nectar from flowering shrubs and trees, as well as insects scavenged from flowers, leaves, and bark.
The squirrel glider nests in tree hollows padded with leaves. It tends to live in family groups comprised of about 9 members, usually one mature male with 2 females and offspring. The gliders breed between June and January, producing one or two offspring each year, which are weaned after 4 months and are independent by 10 months. Gliders live from 4-6 years in the wild.

The squirrel glider is endemic, or unique, to Australia, and is found particularly in eastern Australia. Though sparsely distributed, the squirrel glider is found from western Victoria to northern Queensland. It prefers habitats such as mature River Red gum forest and Box or Box-Ironbark woodlands which lie west of the Great Dividing Range, as well as Bloodwood forests in the coastal areas. It also favors mixed eucalypt forests with an acacia understory. The glider needs well-connected, lush tree canopies for gliding amongst.

The squirrel glider isn't an endangered species, but is threatened by various human activities such as clearing or breaking up of habitats, such as areas where roads cut through forest canopies and gliding distances are too great. Losing old-growth, mature, hollow-bearing trees also imperils the glider. The squirrel glider has predators such as owls, foxes, cats and dogs. You can help spreading the word about this animal by liking it on facebook

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Wednesday 03 March 2010 Gambian Pouched Rat - An Unlikely Hero

The Gambian pouched rat (Cricetomys gambianus) is truly one of the unsung heroes of the rodent world. Found wild throughout Africa; Gambian pouched rats weigh an average 3.3 to 11 kilograms (3-5 pounds), but have been known grow as large as 19.8 kilograms (9 pounds). The average length of this rodent is 60.96 centimeters (2 feet) from nose to tail. The Gambian pouched rat is brown or gray and may have white or lighter colored markings on its feet and belly. It is called a pouched rat because it has large storage pouches in its cheeks, much like a hamster. Omnivorous by nature, captive Gambian pouched rats thrive on a diet of vegetables, seeds, and grains in addition to commercial rodent kibble. In their native habitat of forests and thickets, Gambian pouched rats feed on palm kernels, insects, crabs, and snails. They are a nocturnal animal with keen hearing and smell but poor eyesight. In Africa, they are considered “bushmeat” and commonly captured and eaten. The species is quite common on the African continent and is not endangered.

In the United States, the Gambian pouched rat is kept as a pet, although it is no longer legal to import specimens. Populations of Gambian pouched rats have become a problem in the Florida Keys where they have gained a toehold in the wild. Although it is not known precisely how the rat was released to the wild, it is most likely the result of careless pet owners allowing individuals to escape or deliberately releasing them when they became too hard to handle. Conservationists are concerned that the non-native species could have a serious negative impact on wildlife, particularly birds, as well as pose an agricultural threat if they should move to the mainland. Gambian pouched rats are believed to be one of the species that carry monkeypox and the recent outbreak of the disease in the United States is blamed on rats imported for the pet industry.

In 1996, Bart Weetjens began to experiment with Gambian pouched rats in detecting land mines. Weetjens sought a low-tech method of dealing with the problem of land mines and drew on his childhood experiences with pet rats. Gambian pouched rats have keen sense of smell and can be very docile if they are handled from a young age. Weetjens collaborated with the Belgium Directorate for International Cooperation and established APOPO, a nonprofit organization that trains mine detecting rats in Tanzania. Known as HeroRATS, Gambian pouched rats are trained to smell out explosives. When the rat scratches a patch of ground containing a land mine, a clicker is pressed and the animal receives a food reward.

Gambian pouched rats are also used to detect tuberculosis. Laboratory rats identify sputum samples infected with tuberculosis in a similar manner to rats trained to identify land mines. One rat can work its way through as many as 150 sputum samples in 30 minutes. Tuberculosis is a major health concern in Africa and early detection of the disease is crucial to successful treatment. Gambian pouched rats have been an economical and effective tool in fighting the spread of this disease.

Picture by Liftarn, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license You can help spreading the word about this animal by liking it on facebook

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Tuesday 02 March 2010 The Norway Lemming - Migratory, Not Suicidal

The Norway lemming (Lemmus lemmus) is a common type of lemming found in the tundras of Scandinavia and Western Russia. Norway lemmings are generally 13 to 15 centimeters (about 5 to 6 inches), with an added tail length of 2 centimeters (0.8 inch), and range in weight from 28 grams to 113 grams (1 to 4 ounces).

Besides its namesake country of Norway, these lemmings are found in Sweden, Finland, Western Russia, and a number of islands outlying from these countries. They live in a number of habitats, including grasslands, shrubs, and occasionally wetlands. They are fully comfortable in snow, and during the winter, tunnel along the ground underneath the snow in order to find food and shelter. Their fur is waterproof, and grows thicker in the winter, so they are not affected as dramatically by the snow. When the snow melts during the summer, the Norway lemmings will burrow underground to build nests, and line them with grass for insulation.

Their diet consists primarily of the grasses, shrubs, and moss around them, although in the summer they will eat insects as well. Because of their small size, they are prey to a number of animals, notably, owls, buzzards, skua (or jaegers), wolverines, foxes and ermines.

One of the most pervasive beliefs about Norway lemmings, and lemmings in general, is that they periodically commit mass suicide either by running off cliffs or drowning themselves. In fact, this is patently untrue. The Norway lemming is remarkable in that they experience massive population explosions every three or four years, during which they consume all of the food around them, and are forced to migrate in large numbers to find more food. During this migration, they often attempt to swim across large bodies of water, wear themselves out, and drown. While all lemmings experience periodic population explosions, Norway lemmings are the only species that migrates as a result. Norway lemmings will sometimes migrate on a smaller scale in order to escape an environment that is too harsh, such as a particularly cold winter or hot summer, but this rarely causes the type of large scale death that migration brought on by a population explosion, also known as swarming, does.

Norway lemmings are not currently endangered, and are in fact classified as a species of least concern by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, which produces the well known "Red List" of threatened species. However, there is some concern about the lemming's status in light of global warming, with the BBC reporting in 2008 that climate change is causing lemmings to have less swarming years, and leading to a lighter snowfall. This leads to a reduction in the thick, insulating snow layer, which makes it harder for the Norway lemmings to survive the winter, and a correspondingly lower population. You can help spreading the word about this animal by liking it on facebook

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Monday 01 March 2010 The Alpine Ibex - Europe's greatest rock climber

The Alpine Ibex (Capra ibex) is a stocky member of the goat family that lives in mountainous areas of Europe, mainly in the Swiss Alps. The male ibex has magnificent curved horns that can measure up to 1 meter long. The horns of the male have very distinct ridges along the whole length. The male ibex also has a thick beard and a heavy coat that changes color from gray in the summer to brown in the winter. The female ibex has smaller smooth horns, but lacks the beard. Her coat does not change color with the seasons and remains a light brown color year round.

The male and female Alpine ibex are excellent climbers and have adapted to life in a mountainous rocky terrain. They roam at lower altitudes in search of food during the morning and evening hours. They are herbivores and they subsist on a diet of grasses, hay, woody plants, and leaves. During the daylight hours, they remain at higher altitudes to avoid predators. Their predators include bears, wolves, foxes, golden eagles, and humans. In the wild, if they can avoid predators, Alpine ibexes have a lifespan of 10-14 years.

The Alpine ibexes live in groups, either in herds of females or bachelor groups of males. The males compete for the chance to join the herd of females during mating season. The males and females breed in the late fall, and their offspring, or kids, are born 5-6 months later. Females usually give birth to one offspring per year. Their offspring are natural rock climbers and are able to follow the females high up on the rocks only one day after birth. The young are mature at 8-12 months and will breed at 2-3 years of age.

The Alpine ibex was originally native to Italy but it almost became extinct in the early 19th century as a result of over-hunting. It was thought that the body parts of the ibex had magical powers. Conservation and re-introductions of the species in Switzerland, Austria, and France have increased their numbers and the ibex is not endangered at this time.

Picture of the Alpine ibex by Cash4alex, licensed under Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported You can help spreading the word about this animal by liking it on facebook

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