Cheetah

‎"Enjoying the attention, the cheetah Juba stretches out in the grass in Wetevreden Leeuplaas, South Africa. She needed some peace and quiet because her leg was broken." (photographer's note all the information I have. http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-of-the-day/cheetah-south-africa/

 

)

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Photographer: Frank Trimbos

BABY STOAT

Baby Stoat also known as the ermine or short-tailed weasel.

The stoat has range throughout North America, Europe, and Asia, from Greenland and the Canadian and Siberian Arctic islands south to about 35°N. Stoats in North America are found throughout Alaska and Canada south through most of the northern United States to central California, northern Arizona, northern New Mexico, Iowa, the Great Lakes region, Pennsylvania, and northern Virginia. The stoat in Europe is found as far south as 41ºN in Portugal, and inhabits most islands with the exception of Iceland, Svalbard, the Mediterranean islands and some small North Atlantic islands. In Japan, it is present in central mountains (northern and central Japan Alps) to northern part of Honshu (primarily above 1,200 m) and Hokkaido. Its vertical range is from sea level to 3,000 m.

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Arctic Fox

The Arctic Fox lives in some of the most frigid extremes on the planet. Among its adaptations for cold survival are its deep, thick fur, a system of countercurrent heat exchange in the circulation of paws to retain core temperature, and a good supply of body fat. The fox has a low surface area to volume ratio, as evidenced by its generally rounded body shape, short muzzle and legs, and short, thick ears. Since less of its surface area is exposed to the arctic cold, less heat escapes the body. Its furry paws allow it to walk on ice in search of food. The arctic fox has such keen hearing that it can precisely locate the position of prey under the snow. When it finds prey, it pounces and punches through the snow to catch its victim. Its fur changes colour with the seasons: in the winter it is white to blend in with snow, while in the summer it is brown.

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RAINBOW LORIKEET

This is the most striking coloured and noisy bird is one of 328 species of parrots found and 1 of 21 subspecies of Lorikeets found over the south west Pacific. Its scientific name is Trichoglossus haematodus colourful Rainbow Lorikeet. This is truly where a picture is better than a thousand words. 

Their intense colours have patches of emerald green, orange midnight blue, dull blue, ruby red,lemon yellow, purple, violet greenish grey. Surprisingly enough this colourful bird can be hard sometimes to pick out in its natural habitat They are a small bird generally 11 to 12 inches long, weighing 120 to 140 grams on average females are generally a bit smaller and adolescents have duller markings They are said to live over 20 years in the wild. Their vocalisation is varied from "screeching" in flight to "chatting" during feeding.

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Black Bear Cub ♥

Black bears may enter camps or your cottage or home, especially when wild foods are scarce, but they rarely attack people.

Black bears usually retreat before people are aware of them. Their hearing is more sensitive than a human’s, and their broad, soft foot pads allow them to move quietly downwind where they can best identify their dangers. They may stand upright to see farther (not a sign of aggressiveness). If need be, they can run faster than 25 mph or climb trees quickly.

They generally prefer to forage for wild foods away from people but are almost as quick as chipmunks to seek food in campsites and garbage cans when wild nut and berry crops fail. They rarely attack people. Campground bears and roadside panhandlers may nip or cuff people that crowd around them, try to pet them, or tease them with food. But the injuries, if any, are usually slight, only occasionally requiring stitches.

Full-blown attacks by black bears are rare. Black bears attacks are usually not at campgrounds and are usually not by black bears that are familiar with people. How likely is a black bear to be a killer? The 500,000 black bears in North America kill fewer than one person per 3 years, on the average, despite hundreds of thousands of encounters. To put this in perspective, for each death from a black bear across North America, there are approximately 17 deaths from spiders, 25 deaths from snakes, 67 deaths from dogs, 150 deaths from tornadoes, 180 deaths from bees and wasps, 374 deaths from lightning, and 90,000 homicides in the United States alone (data from the National Center for Health Statistics, 1980-1983). In the rare event of one of these attacks, the best defense is to fight with fists, feet, rocks, or anything hard.www.bearwithus.org

 

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Hyacinth Macaw

A Hyacinth Macaw sharing hugs and love with his wee girl ♥

The Hyacinth Macaw, is a parrot native to central and eastern South America. With a length (from the top of its head to the tip of its long pointed tail) of about 100 cm (3.3 ft) it is longer than any other species of parrot. It is the largest macaw and the largest flying parrot species, though the flightless Kakapo of New Zealand can outweigh it at up to 3.5 kg. While generally easily recognized, it can be confused with the far rarer and smaller Lear's Macaw. Habitat loss and trapping wild birds for the pet trade has taken a heavy toll on their population in the wild, and as a result the species is classified as Endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List.



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Northern Saw-Whet Owl

Their habitat is coniferous forests, sometimes mixed or deciduous woods, across North America. Most birds nest in coniferous type forests of the North but winter in mixed or deciduous woods. They also love riparian areas because of the abundance of prey there. They live in tree cavities and old nests made by other small raptors. Some are permanent residents, while others may migrate south in winter or move down from higher elevations. Their range covers most of North America including southeastern Alaska, southern Canada, most of the United States and the central mountains in Mexico. 

As with so much of our wildlife, we hold their future in the palms of our hands.

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Photographer: Marie Sharp

The KOALA Hug

“A mom’s hug lasts long after she lets go,” ♥

The Koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) is an arboreal herbivorous marsupial native to Australia. A Koala is NOT a bear.

The koala is found in coastal regions of eastern and southern Australia, from Adelaide to the southern part of Cape York Peninsula. Populations also extend for considerable distances inland in regions with enough moisture to support suitable woodlands. The koalas of South Australia were largely exterminated during the early part of the 20th century, but the state has since been repopulated with Victorian stock. The koala is not found in Tasmania, the Northern Territory or Western Australia. As of 2012 there have been increasing concerns about the animal's sustainable future in the environment.

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Pallas Cat of Central Asia

Pallas's cat (Otocolobus manul), also called the manul, is a small wild cat having a broad but patchy distribution in the grasslands and montane steppe of Central Asia. The species is negatively impacted by habitat degradation, prey base decline, and hunting, and has therefore been classified as Near Threatened by IUCN since 2002.

Pallas's cat is native to the steppe regions of Central Asia, at elevations up to 5,050 metres (16,570 ft). They are found in the Transcaucasus and Transbaikal regions of Russia, and, less frequently, in the Altai, Tyva, and Buryatia Republics. They also inhabit Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Kashmir and across much of western China, especially in the Tibetan Plateau. In 1997, they were reported for the first time as being present in the eastern Sayan Mountains.

Populations in the Caspian Sea region, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, are declining, and increasingly isolated. In 2008, an individual was camera-tra

pped in Iran's Khojir National Park for the first time.

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Long-Eared Jerboa

The Long-eared Jerboa, Euchoreutes naso, is a nocturnal mouse-like rodent with a long tail, long hind legs for jumping, and exceptionally large ears. It is distinct enough th

at authorities consider it to be the only member of both its genus, Euchoreutes, and subfamily, Euchoreutinae.

Long-eared jerboas are found in the Palearctic ecozone. The specific palearctic ecozone areas they are found in are southernmost Mongolia to the Takla-Makan Desert, Mengxin, Aerijin Mountain, and Qing-Zang Plateau regions of north western China. Long-eared jerboas in most cases are nocturnal, The long eared jerboa's fur according to the book 100 animals to see before they die "is reddish yellow to pale russet with white underparts." There is a long eared Jerboa coin. Very little is known about the species.

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Hyacinth Macaw

Hyacinth Macaw is a parrot native to central and eastern South America. 
With a length (from the top of its head to the tip of its long pointed tail) of about 100 cm (3.3 ft) it is longer than any other species of parrot. 
It is the largest macaw and the largest flying parrot species.

















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Poison Dart Frog

Claim to Fame: The name “dart frogs” stems from the fact that indigenous Amerindians use the frogs’ venom to poison the tips of their blow darts – a properly prepared dart can remain lethal for up to 2 years.

How to ID it: This small (2-cm-long) frog is beautifully patterned and brightly colored.

Where You’ll Find It: The rainforests of Central and South America. Unlike most frogs, which are nocturnal, dart frogs enjoy the light of day.

How It Attacks: When stressed, poison is secreted through the frog’s microscopic skin glands. Touching a frog won’t cause any problems unless you have an open sore or wound (or lick your fingers); then the toxins enter your blood stream and you can die within 5 minutes.

What Happens to Your Body: The secreted toxin attacks your nervous system, inducing strong muscle contractions, violent convulsions, salivation, heart arrhythmia, and in extreme cases, heart failure and death.

Emergency Treatment: There is currently no effective antidote.
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Photographer: Valerie Abbott

Rhinos

The IUCN Red List identifies three of the species as critically endangered.

Members of the rhinoceros family are characterized by their large size (they are some of the largest remaining megafauna, with all of the species able to reach one tonne or more in weight); as well as by a herbivorous diet; a thick protective skin, 1.5–5 cm thick, formed from layers of collagen positioned in a lattice structure; relatively small brains for mammals this size (400–600 g); and a large horn. They generally eat leafy material, although their ability to ferment food in their hindgut allows them to subsist on more fibrous plant matter, if necessary. Unlike other perissodactyls, the two African species of rhinoceros lack teeth at the front of their mouths, relying instead on their powerful premolar and molar teeth to grind up plant food.

Rhinoceros are killed by humans for their horns, which are bought and sold on the black market, and which are used by some cultures for ornamental or (pseudo-scientific) medicinal purposes. The horns are made of keratin, the same type of protein that makes up hair and fingernails. Both African species and the Sumatran rhinoceros have two horns, while the Indian and Javan rhinoceros have a single horn.

Blue Footed Boobies

Blue Footed Boobies

The Blue-footed Booby is a bird in the Sulidae family which comprises ten species of long-winged seabirds. The natural breeding habitat of the Blue-footed Booby is tropical and subtropical islands of the Pacific Ocean, most famously, the Galápagos Islands, Ecuador.

Black Swans and Cygnets ♥

The Black Swan (Cygnus atratus) is a large waterbird, a species of swan, which breeds mainly in the southeast and southwest regions of Australia. The species was hunted to extinction in New Zealand, but later reint

roduced. Within Australia they are nomadic, with erratic migration patterns dependent upon climatic conditions. Black Swans are large birds with mostly black plumage and red bills. They are monogamous breeders that share incubation duties and cygnet rearing between the sexes.

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Mama Bear and Cub

Bear Back Rider ♥

Brown Bear Momma and cub appear to be returning from a fishing expedition.

The brown bear (Ursus arctos) is a large bear distributed across much of northern Eurasia and North America. Adult bears generally weigh between 1

00 and 635 kg (220 and 1,400 lb) and its largest subspecies, the Kodiak bear, rivals the polar bear as the largest member of the bear family and as the largest land-based predator.

There are several recognized subspecies within the brown bear species. In North America, two types are generally recognized, the coastal brown bear and the inland grizzly bear, and the two types could broadly define all brown bear subspecies. An adult grizzly living inland in Yukon may weigh as little as 80 kg (180 lb), while an adult brown bear in nearby coastal Alaska living on a steady, nutritious diet of spawning salmon may weigh as much as 680 kg (1,500 lb).

While the brown bear's range has shrunk and it has faced local extinctions, it remains listed as a least concern species by the IUCN with a total population of approximately 200,000. As of 2012, this and the American black bear are the only bear species not classified as threatened by the IUCN.

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Siberian Husky & Her Adopted Kitty

A teeny little tuxedo kitty found a new mom, a big Siberian husky who looked after and nursed her as her own. Mushu the kitty was born to a stray cat and later rescued by her human when she was only 8 weeks old. They had a dog named Luna w

ho accepted Mushu as soon as she laid eye on the poor little tux. The love is reciprocal. Mushu chose Luna to be her surrogate mom and they have been inseparable ever since.

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Bald Eagle

The Bald Eagle 

The adult Bald Eagle is mainly brown with a white head and tail. The sexes are identical in plumage, but females are larger than males. The beak is large and hooked. The plumage of the immature is brown. Bald Eagles are not act

ually bald, the name derives from the older meaning of the word, "white headed".

In the late 20th century the Bald Eagle was on the brink of extirpation in the continental United States, while flourishing in much of Alaska and Canada. Populations recovered and stabilized, so the species was removed from the U.S. federal government's list of endangered species and transferred to the list of threatened species on July 12, 1995, and it was removed from the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife in the Lower 48 States on June 28, 2007.

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Asian Elephants

The Asian or Asiatic elephant (Elephas maximus) is the only living species of the genus Elephants and is distributed in Southeast Asia from India in the west to Borneo in the east. Asian elephants are the largest living land animals in Asia.

Since 1986, Elephas maximus has been listed as endangered by IUCN as the population has declined by at least 50% over the last three generations, estimated to be 60–75 years. The species is pre-eminently threatened by habitat loss, degradation and fragmentation. In 2003, the wild population was estimated at between 41,410 and 52,345 individuals.

Asian elephants are rather long-lived, with a maximum recorded life span of 86 years. This species has been domesticated and is used for such purposes as timber-carrying and transportation.

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