Category Archives: Passion Blog

The closest relatives of the South African Penguins are the Humboldt and Magellanic Penguins, and all are found near or south of the equator. South African Penguins are found on the southwestern coast of Africa, but they live in colonies on 24 islands in colonies. These colonies are suitable habitats for African Penguins because they lay their eggs on rocky and sandy coastal islands, but they need close shores to hunt in the nutrient-rich cold waters.

South African Penguins have several natural predators, including sharks, seals and killer whales. Land-based enemies include mongoose, genet and even cats and dogs. Additionally, Kelp Gulls often steal the eggs and newborn chicks of African Penguins.

Unlike many wild animals, South African Penguins are one of the only few species to mate for life. The animals begin mating between 2 and 6 years of age, and the lifelong partners take turns caring for the chicks and protecting the eggs. Sometimes, the partners return to the same colony and even the same nest year after year to lay eggs and raise their young. After chicks are hatched, they are under constant watch by their parents, and at about 30 days old, both the chicks and parents can go to sea together. Sometimes, chicks stay on the beach, but form groups called creches to reduce attacks on chicks.

African Penguins typically live 10-15 years in the wild. They may travel a great distance for their food, possible up to 110 km. They can swim about 7 km/hour and can reach maximum speeds of about 20 km/hour. When they dive for fish, their average dives last about two and a half minutes. Typically, these dives are about 30 m deep, but dives as deep as 130 m have been recorded.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_penguin

http://www.penguins.cl/african-penguins.htm

http://www.neaq.org/animals_and_exhibits/animals/african_penguin/index.php

http://blog.goodosphere.com/?p=723

http://www.citynews.ca/2012/03/09/baby-penguin-born-at-toronto-zoo/

Technically, the mountain lion is classified as a “small” cat based on its tendency to purr instead of roar, but the cat is still a fierce predator that can be found from Canada to southern South America in forests, prairies, deserts and swamps. A subspecies of the mountain lion is even found in the swaps of Florida, but the subspecies is extremely endangered and only around 50 cats remain.

Mountain lions all have slender frames and a flexible spine. Their color varies based on their home climate: reddish brown cats live in warm climates while cats with grey, longer hair are found in colder environments. Like most cat species, males weigh more than females do, and all cats have strong hind legs that give them the muscles needed to pounce on prey. Consequently, mountain lions tend to kill by surprising prey with a fierce jump. The animals commonly hunt deer, raccoons, rabbits, and squirrels, but they may sometimes attempt to take down a larger animal, like a moose. The mountain lions may even bury part of their food after a kill to save it for later.

Unlike some cat species, mountain lions are solitary. Each cat has its own home range which may overlap, but cats tend not to interact. They instead communicate their presence through scent marks, scratches in trees or by letting out a “call,” that is similar to a high-pitched whistle. The cats are most active around dusk, and find shelter all over their home ranges – from caves to thick brush.

One to six mountain lion cubs are born at a time and are cared for by their mothers. They are born with spots, which help to hide them from predators, but the spots fade when the cubs are about six months old and learn to hunt. Although they cannot hunt until six months of age, they can eat meat at about six weeks. The cubs will go off on their own between a year and 18 months of age.

Here is a video of mountain lions at the Cincinnati Zoo!

http://animals.sandiegozoo.org/animals/mountain-lion-puma-cougar

I don’t know if you really count peacocks as cute, but I think they’re beautiful and super interesting sooooo. They’re in the blog.

Although most people think that “peacock” is the name of the species of bird, the word actually only describes the males. The whole species is referred to as peafowl, and the birds are members of the pheasant family. Just so you know, females are referred to as peahens (they aren’t nearly as colorful as peacocks because they must blend in with brush to keep their eggs safe) and babies are called peachicks (not chickpeas).  There are three types of peafowl that can be found in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia and Africa, but most people are familiar with the Indian peafowl, which is the breed that is most likely to be seen in zoos. In the wild, peafowl may live in open or rain forests.

The peacock is most famous for his train, and the oldest peacocks – those that have survived the longest in the wild and are therefore better suited evolutionarily to mate – tend to have the longest trains. Because that’s what all that fuss is for! Attracting the ladies. The long feathers are actually not the peacock’s tail – they cover the base of the tail. Normally, a peacock’s train drags on the ground behind him, but when he is trying to attract a male, he lifts up his train by propping it up on the shorter base feathers. The train can span seven feet across by three feet tall in peacocks that are about six years old. To put on a real show, the peacock can quiver, which makes his feathers shimmer. And, just because I know you’re dying to know, those little round dots on the tail that look like eyes are called ocelli.

While you may think that peacock trains make them more susceptible to predator attacks (mongooses, leopards and tigers all attack the birds), when a predator catches the peacock tail, the feathers easily fall out and the bird can fly away. Plus, peacock’s are famous for their loud calls which easily alert other animal species of a predator in the area.

Peahens are (yet again) responsible for raising their children all on their own. They sit on their eggs for about four weeks, but as soon as the peachicks hatch, they are able to walk around and forage. They are not, however, able to fend for themselves and they can’t even fly to the safety of a tree to roost until they are about two weeks old. By two months, the peachicks – male and female – look just like their momma.

Okay, that’s probably enough about peacocks, peafowl and peachicks. Here are some videos!

http://animals.sandiegozoo.org/animals/peafowl

http://vi.sualize.us/cute_owl_cute_bird_adorable_picture_82Eh.html

This weeks cute animal happens to be one of my favorite. So while you may not think they are the cutest animal in the world, I don’t really care. Because they’re owls. And I love owls. There are various types of owls, and they can be found all over the world. In fact, owls occupy all continents except for antarctica. Most owls fly at night, but others hunt during the day. Some live in cold climates and others live in deserts. Some owls reside in wide open spaces, but others live in dense rain forests. Though owls are extremely diverse, they have been revered worldwide for centuries as symbols of wisdom or words of warning.

Owls are built to be one of the most able winged predator. Their ears are huge holes in the owl’s skull and can help the owl hear a mouse move from up to 75 feet away. The owl’s eyes are so large that there isn’t enough room in the skull for eye muscles, so the eyes do not move. This is why the owl is able to turn his whole head almost 270° around. Consequently, this increases the owl’s visual focus, since both eyes are directed at the same place. The owl’s feather’s are even designed to be beneficial. The soft edges of an owl feather make an owl’s flight almost silent. Coarse feathers would make the owl more audible to prey, making hunting more challenging.

Owls fly low to the ground when they are hunting, and most feed off of small prey. The type of prey depends on the owl’s habitat – they can eat rodents and insects or fish if they fly over the water. There have even been instances of large owls carrying off young deer!

Most owls live solitarily because there is less competition for food. Owls can live just about anywhere, and they don’t waste time building their own homes. They just set up shop in any old nest or hole in a tree they can find. Owls only live together when it is time to mate. Mating is also the time owl calls become loudest. Male owls have to impress a female before she gets over her fear of living in proximity to another owl (even though the female is actually the larger of the two). He may leave her dead food and will wait around until she lets him near her. The female owl will lay eggs – two or three if there is scarce food and up to six eggs if food is easily obtainable. The chicks will hatch two days apart. This way, at least a few chicks will survive in the event that the female owl cannot find enough food. Owls are cared for for about three months by their mother and father, and by the time they are six months old, they are fully grown and will venture to find their own territories.

Here’s a video of a cute baby owl.

http://animals.sandiegozoo.org/animals/owl

The Chinese call the Giant Panda “large bear-cat,” but they’re only half right: after many years of genetic testing, scientists have determined that the DNA of Giant Pandas aligns most closely with that of other bears. They have similar appearances, walking and climbing movements and social systems. The species, however does have some differences.

First foremost, the Giant Pandas coat is unlike that of any other bear. It is stipulated that the white and black spots may serve as camouflage when the panda is in the treetops or patches of bamboo. Another theory is that the spots help pandas identify one another while on the ground. Regardless of their purpose, all panda spots are unique to each panda.

The diet and shelter of a Giant Panda are one and the same. The species relies almost completely on one plant: bamboo. Giant Pandas spend up to twelve hours each day eating bamboo, partly because the low nutritional quality of the plant requires a large amount of consumption. Their strong jawbones and cheek muscles allow the panda bear to chew the thick bamboo stalks and their teeth are useful to pull off the outer layers of the stalk. Giant Pandas also eat bamboo leaves, grasses, bulbs, fruits, insects and rodents, but bamboo makes up the largest portion of the Giant Pandas diet.

Bamboo is also an important source of shelter for the Giant Panda, who lives natively in the high bamboo and conifer forests of southwestern China. These old-growth forests are important because they provide hollow logs which Giant Pandas use as their dens, and the large tree stumps provide shelter for bamboo. Most pandas live solitarily in areas of about 2 square miles. Wild pandas are solitary because of the large amount of bamboo they consume each day. If Giant Pandas cross paths, they may get into fights, and the only time pandas live in proximity is during mating season or for the eighteen months that mother pandas have cubs.

Pandas have scent glands that release scents that relay information like sex, age and reproductive status to nearby pandas. This becomes important when a female panda is ready to get pregnant. Nearby male pandas will monitor her scent and stay nearby until it is time for mating. Afterwards, they leave to find another female panda. Meanwhile the female panda carries her cubs. The reproductive rate of Giant Pandas is very low – most Giant Pandas will only have about five litters in their lifetime and breed once every two or three years.

These cubs are helpless when they are born, and they’ll stay with their mothers until they are about a year and a half old. However, they are still fairly vulnerable to predators until they are about two and a half years old, so they spend most of their time high in trees where they are safe. Though Giant Pandas have fewer predators today then they did historically, they are still the prey of golden cats, yellow-throated martens, and weasels.

Now that you’ve learned a little bit about Giant Pandas, enjoy these videos!

http://animals.sandiegozoo.org/animals/giant-panda

As a college student, I am almost always tired, and sometimes, I wish I could just spend my whole day asleep. And if I was a koala, instead of a human, I could!

Koalas come from a class of animal called marsupials (like kangaroos), and are actually not bears, even though you may have referred to them as “koala bears” in the past. Koalas live in southeastern and eastern Australia, and typically have a life-span of about ten to fifteen years. They inhabit vast expanses of eucalyptus-laden forests, and, as I mentioned, sleep A LOT, sometimes as much as 20 hours a day. Koalas sustain themselves solely from the consumption of eucalyptus leaves, and they spend a long time sleeping so they can fully digest the leaves. Additionally, since eucalyptus leaves don’t provide a high-calorie diet, the excess sleeping is a way for koalas to conserve their energy.

Koalas are one of the few animals that can even eat eucalyptus leaves. The leaves are poisonous to most animals, but koalas have a bacteria in their digestive tract that can break down the toxic components of the leaves. There are actually more than 600 types of eucalyptus leaves, but koalas tend to favor only about 36 of the varieties, choosing the leaves that are the least toxic.

Since koalas get their food (and protection) from the very tall eucalyptus tree, they have many adaptations to make living in their environment possible. They have a shortened tail and curved spine to allow them to sit and sleep between the branches of the trees. They are excellent climbers due to the presence of two opposable thumbs with sharp claws and their strong arm and shoulder muscles. They have good grip on branches because of rough pads on their hands and feet. Koalas usually weigh between nine and twenty-nine pounds, depending on the species, and males tend to weigh about fifty percent more than females do.

Females usually only give birth to one child at a time, an infant called a “joey.” The gestation period is only about thirty days, but when the joey is born, it is about as small as a jellybean and could not possibly survive on its own. It therefore crawls from its mother’s birth canal into her pouch, where it resides for about six months, feeding on milk, until it is strong enough to begin venturing into the real world. Mother koalas have a pouch similar to that of a kangaroo, but it opens from the bottom, instead of the top. This is an adaptation which allows dirt to stay out of the pouch as an animal is burrowing, which koalas used to due before they discovered trees. Even after a joey grows up, it will still return to it’s mother’s pouch to sleep, and after it gets too large, it will climb onto it’s mother’s back. At about a year old, the joey can live on its own.

Now, enjoy this video of a koala!

google.com

Let’s just get one thing straight right now. I love turtles. I’m not sure why, but I just think they’re adorable. Before I left for Penn State, my best friend gave me a turtle ring which has given me lots of luck on many exams (I’m looking at you CHEM110). When I was younger, my family went on a trip to Turks and Caicos. For those of you who don’t know what that is, here’s a picture.

While I was there, I went snorkeling with my dad, and I was really scared to be so far out in such open water. It was a completely new experience for me, and I wasn’t a huge fan of feeling so helpless. But, as I was floating atop the water, I looked below me and saw a HUGE sea turtle, who, I swear to all that is holy, waved at me. I’m not kidding. Just call me Dr. Dolittle. I was instantly relieved, and I was no longer worried about being out in the ocean.

The tortoise is basically the land version of a sea turtle. He likes warm weather, so the southern hemisphere of the world tends to be a good home to a tortoise. Tortoises are almost always herbivores, and if they live in very hot climates, they may reserve their scavenging for dusk and dawn, since the temperature is cooler.

Tortoises lay eggs, usually about ten at a time, but not all of their babies survive (lots of predators like to eat tortoise eggs and little bitty tortoises). Mommy tortoises don’t care too much about their kids. They lay their eggs and leave, and when the eggs hatch, the young tortoises pretty much sit around for a week until they are strong enough to venture out and get their own food.

Some species of tortoises can live for about 150 years, so if you ever plan on buying a pet tortoise, you better make sure you can will him to someone when it is your time to pass on. However, if you are thinking about a pet tortoise, here are some adorable videos to make you sure of your decision.

• Kitten Rides a Tortoise
• Tortoise Chasing a Tomato

http://a-z-animals.com/animals/tortoise/

For the past few weeks, we have focused on a lot of cute animals that call the desert their homes. This week, were moving to a whole new climate: the rainforest! The rainforest is home to a multitude of adorable animals that live in the trees, on the ground and in water, but a lot of these animals are also super dangerous, so I wouldn’t advise going on a rainforest expedition to meet any of them.

Anyway, this week brings you information about one of the cutest monkeys I have ever encountered in my life. The Emperor Tamarin normally lives in the thick forests of Brazil or Peru, and the breed is thought to be named after once-Emperor Frederick Wilhelm II of Germany because of their glorious long white mustaches.

Emperor Tamarins are omnivorous, but their diet is composed mainly of sap, fruits, green plants and insects. Occasionally, the monkeys will feast on small rodents or reptiles. The little monkeys weigh less than a pound, and are only about ten inches long. They are most active during the day, and at night, they rest safely in the treetops. The monkeys are hunted by jungle cats, snakes, or large birds, but their greatest threat comes from deforestation by humans.

The monkeys live in “troops,” that consist of less than eight members, and are led by the oldest female tamarin, but a majority of the group members are male. The female is responsible for carrying one to two infants for a gestation period that is usually about five months long, but after the babies are born, responsibility falls mostly with the male monkeys. Though the females of the group may take care of the monkeys, the males groom and carry them around much more frequently.

Enjoy this video of Emperor Tamarins!

http://a-z-animals.com/animals/emperor-tamarin/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/wildfacts/factfiles/303.shtml

The much-requested animal of the week is the ever-majestic lion. There are two main types of lion: the African Lion and the Asiatic Lion. Asian Lions are more endangered than African Lions, but both only live on land that is designated as reserve. Did you know that the word “lion” in Swahili is simba? Betcha thought Disney was super creative with that one – turns out I could have come up with it using Google Translator.

Grown male lions weigh about 450 pounds and females weigh about 325 pounds. Lions live in a pride, which is a matriarchal society that can have between three and thirty lions. If resources are scarce, prides tend to be smaller. Lionesses stay in the pride for life, and they make up the bulk of the pride. Male lions may only stay in a pride for months or years, and there are usually only a few unrelated males in a pride.

Lionesses definitely take charge in a pride, as they are the permanent fixtures. They do almost all of the hunting, since they are smaller and more agile than their larger male counterparts. Lions eat antelope, crocodiles, baby elephants or rhinos. They may also steal prey from other animals. Lions have eyes with a horizontal streak of nerve cells so they can look across a whole plain to help them hunt.

Male lions stay behind and watch the cubs. They also patrol and guard the pride’s territory. Males are not permanent to a pride, and they have to fight to keep their spots when a new lion tries to infiltrate the space. Whoever wins gets to stay in the pride. This intense activity doesn’t last for much of the day – lions spend up to 21 hours laying around. 

Cubs are raised by the pride until they are about two years old. Female lions remain with the pride, usually for their whole lives. Males on the other hand, are run out of the pride and they must fight to find a space in another. They typically wait until they are older and fully grown to fight their way into another pride, but until then, they may run in “bachelor groups” with other young lions.

Speaking of young lions.. enjoy these ADORABLE videos.

• A Lion Cub Roar
• Lion Cubs in the Wild
• Seven New Lion Cubs
• Lion Cub Meets the Pride
• Zookeeper and Lion Cubs
• http://www.sandiegozoo.org/animalbytes/t-lion.html

Most of you probably know the meerkat as Hakuna-Matata-finding Timon in the Lion King. The meerkat is a member of the mongoose family that spends it’s time living in underground burrows with its “mob.” The mob can consist of up to forty related or unrelated meerkats living in an intricate burrow system with separate compartments for sleeping.

Mobs tend to keep to their own territories, but if two groups interact, they will fight, even to the death, to defend their homes. In these “wars,” all adult meerkats of the mob line up in a row and charge their opponent.

Meerkats work together with their own mob every day. They work to hunt animals, like venomous snakes, that they would be unable to kill on their own. They watch out for predators together too – while the group hunts, one meerkat will always stand guard, singing a song of clicks and peeping, to tell the group that the area is safe. If a predator is spotted, all meerkats run to a nearby bolt hole – an entrance to their tunnels that is large enough to allow a group of meerkats to enter at once. They may kick up dust as they run to camouflage themselves or run as a group to appear larger.

Meerkats live in Southern Africa’s Kalahari Desert, so they have several adaptations to their environment. They have dark patches around their eyes to protect from the sun’s glare and a special membrane over their eyes that protects them while digging. Their pupils are horizontal, rather than circular or vertical, which gives them a wide range of vision. The meerkat can close his ears while digging, four toes on each foot, and retractable claws that help them to dig. They also have a long, stiff tail that they use to balance when standing upright. Their thin fur and dark stomachs allow them to control their body temperatures, whether by sunbathing or laying on a cool rock.

Though the meerkat may sometimes eat larger snakes, their everyday diet consists of insects, rodents, birds, lizards and even scorpions, since they have some immunity to the venom.

Meerkat pups are normally born during times when there is plenty of food, and the dominant female in the mob is usually the only one to have pups. Nevertheless, the entire mob works together to raise the pups, teaching them how to hide, clean, defend their territory and hunt. Mothers will even sometimes bring home live scorpions with the tail cut off to teach the pups how to hunt the dangerous animal without getting hurt by the venom. Different meerkats take turns “babysitting” the pups, and if the group needs to move to a new part of their territory, the babysitters carry the pups by the scruffs of their neck to the new burrows. Here, enjoy a video of baby meerkats!