Friday, October 24, 2008

DEER

DEER:{{{}}}
A deer is a ruminant mammal belonging to the family Cervidae. A number of broadly similar animals from related families within the order Artiodactyla (even-toed ungulates) are often also called deer. Male deer of all species, except the Chinese water deer, grow and shed new antlers each year, as opposed to horned animals such as antelope—these are in the same order as deer and may bear a superficial resemblance, but they are permanently horned. The Musk deer of Asia and Mouse Deer or Water Chevrotain of tropical African and Asian forests are not true deer and form their own families, "Moschidae" and Tragulidae, respectively. All other animals in Africa resembling deer are antelope.






Etymology:[][][]
The word deer was originally quite broad in meaning, but became more specific over time. In
Middle English, der (O.E. dēor) meant a wild animal of any kind (as opposed to cattle, which meant any domestic livestock).[1] This general sense gave way to the modern sense by the end of the Middle English period, around 1500. The German word Tier, the Dutch word dier, and the Scandinavian words djur/dyr/dýr, cognates of English deer, still have the general sense of "animal". The adjective of relation pertaining to deer is cervine.
For most deer, the male is called a buck, the female is a doe, and the young is a fawn. However, large deer (elk, moose, caribou) are named as if they were cattle, that is, bull, cow, calf. A group of deer is commonly called a herd. Hart, from
Old English heorot "deer", is an alternative term for a stag, particularly a Red Deer stag past its fifth year (compare with the modern Dutch word hert meaning deer). The county Hertfordshire is named after a place where deer ford a watercourse. The word hart is not commonly used, but Shakespeare makes several references, punning on the sound-alike "hart" and "heart", for example in Twelfth Night. "The White Hart" and "The Red Hart" are common English pub names. Whinfell Forest once contained a landmark tree called Harthorn.[2] The word "Hart" also exists in Saterfrisian, being a synonym for the Word "Hirsk" which is more similar to the German Word "Hirsch".








Wednesday, October 22, 2008

SNAKES




Snake
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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This article is about the animal. For other uses, see Snake (disambiguation).
SnakeFossil range: 145–0 Ma
PreЄ
CretaceousRecent

Spotted PythonAntaresia maculosa
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Chordata
Subphylum:
Vertebrata
Class:
Sauropsida
Subclass:
Diapsida
Infraclass:
Lepidosauromorpha
Superorder:
Lepidosauria
Order:
Squamata
Suborder:
Serpentes
Linnaeus, 1758

World range of snakes(rough range of sea snakes in blue)
Infraorders and Families
AlethinophidiaNopcsa, 1923
AcrochordidaeBonaparte, 1831
AniliidaeStejneger, 1907
Anomochilidae – Cundall, Wallach & Rossman, 1993
AtractaspididaeGünther, 1858
BoidaeGray, 1825
Bolyeriidae – Hoffstetter, 1946
ColubridaeOppel, 1811
CylindrophiidaeFitzinger, 1843
ElapidaeF. Boie, 1827
LoxocemidaeCope, 1861
PythonidaeFitzinger, 1826
TropidophiidaeBrongersma, 1951
UropeltidaeMüller, 1832
ViperidaeOppel, 1811
XenopeltidaeBonaparte, 1845
ScolecophidiaCope, 1864
AnomalepididaeTaylor, 1939
LeptotyphlopidaeStejneger, 1892
TyphlopidaeMerrem, 1820
A snake is an elongate
reptile of the suborder Serpentes. Like all reptiles, snakes are covered in scales. All snakes are carnivorous and can be distinguished from legless lizards by their lack of eyelids, hind limbs, external ears, and the presence of only vestigial forelimbs. The 2,700+ species of snakes spread across every continent except Antarctica ranging in size from the tiny, 10 cm long thread snake to pythons and anacondas at 9 m (30 ft) long. In order to accommodate snakes' narrow bodies, paired organs (such as kidneys) appear one in front of the other instead of side by side.
While venomous snakes comprise a minority of the species, some possess potent venom capable of causing painful injury or
death to humans. However, venom in snakes is primarily for killing and subduing prey rather than for self-defense. Snakes may have evolved from a lizard which adapted to burrowing during the Cretaceous period (c 150 Ma), though some scientists have postulated an aquatic origin. The diversity of modern snakes appeared during the Paleocene period (c 66 to 56 Ma).
A literary word for snake is serpent (a
Middle English word which comes from Old French, and ultimately from *serp-, "to creep"[1], also ερπω in Greek). The serpent is also a symbol of the healing arts.







Friday, October 10, 2008

KING KONG

KINGKONG:';';;'
IS WORLDS STRONGEST ANIMAL



Friday, October 3, 2008

Monday, September 29, 2008

TIGER

The tiger:====
Naming and etymology
The word "tiger" is taken from the Greek word "tigris", which is possibly derived from a Persian source meaning "arrow", a reference to the animal's speed and also the origin for the name of the River Tigris.[7][8] In American English, "Tigress" was first recorded in 1611. It was one of the many species originally described, as Felis tigris, by Linnaeus in his 18th century work, Systema Naturae.[3][9] The generic component of its scientific designation, Panthera tigris, is often presumed to derive from Greek pan- ("all") and theron ("beast"), but this may be a folk etymology. Although it came into English through the classical languages, panthera is probably of East Asian origin, meaning "the yellowish animal," or "whitish-yellow".[10]
A group of tigers[11] is rare (see below), but when seen together is termed a 'streak' or an 'ambush'.

Range:---

Range of the tiger including the western part 1900 and 1990
In the historical past tigers were widespread in Asia, from the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea, to Siberia and Indonesia. During the 19th century the striped cats completely vanished from western Asia, and became restricted to isolated pockets in the remaining parts of their range. Today, this fragmented relic range extends from India in the west to China and Southeast Asia in the east. The northern limit is close to the Amur River in south eastern Siberia. The only large island inhabited by tigers today is Sumatra. Tigers vanished from Java during the second half of the 19th century, and in Borneo are known only from fossil remains.

Physical characteristics, taxonomy and evolution
The oldest remains of a tiger-like cat, called Panthera palaeosinensis, have been found in China and Java. This species lived about 2 million years ago, at the beginning of the Pleistocene, and was smaller than a modern tiger. The earliest fossils of true tigers are known from Java, and are between 1.6 and 1.8 million years old. Distinct fossils from the early and middle Pleistocene were also discovered in deposits from China, and Sumatra. A subspecies called the Trinil tiger (Panthera tigris trinilensis) lived about 1.2 million years ago and is known fossils found at Trinil in Java.[12]
Tigers first reached India and northern Asia in the late Pleistocene, reaching eastern Beringia (but not the American Continent), and Japan, and Sakhalin. Fossils found in Japan indicate that the local tigers were, like the surviving island subspecies, smaller than the mainland forms. This may be due to the phenomenon in which body size is related to environmental space (see insular dwarfism), or perhaps the availability of prey. Until the Holocene, tigers also lived in Borneo.

Physical characteristics:...

Siberian tiger
Today, tigers are perhaps the most recognisable of all the cats (with the possible exception of the lion). They typically have rusty-reddish to brown-rusty coats, a whitish medial and ventral area, a white "fringe" that surrounds the face, and stripes that vary from brown or gray to pure black. The form and density of stripes differs between subspecies (as well as the ground coloration of the fur; for instance, Siberian tigers are usually paler than other tiger subspecies), but most tigers have over 100 stripes. The pattern of stripes is unique to each animal, and thus could potentially be used to identify individuals, much in the same way as fingerprints are used to identify people. This is not, however, a preferred method of identification, due to the difficulty of recording the stripe pattern of a wild tiger. It seems likely that the function of stripes is camouflage, serving to help tigers conceal themselves amongst the dappled shadows and long grass of their environment as they stalk their prey. The stripe pattern is found on a tiger's skin and if shaved, its distinctive camouflage pattern would be preserved. Like other big cats, tigers have a white spot on the backs of their ears.

Skeleton:'''''
Tigers have the additional distinction of being the heaviest cats found in the wild[13]. However, the subspecies differ markedly in size, tending to increase proportionally with latitude, as predicted by Bergmann's Rule. Thus, large male Siberian Tigers (Panthera tigris altaica) can reach a total length of 3.5 m and a weight of 306 kilograms[14], which is considerably larger than the sizes reached by island-dwelling tigers such as the Sumatran, the smallest living subspecies with a body weight of only 75-140 kg[14]. Tigresses are smaller than the males in each subspecies, although the size difference between male and female tigers tends to be more pronounced in the larger subspecies of tiger, with males weighing up to 1.7 times as much as the females[15]. In addition, male tigers have wider forepaw pads than females. This difference is often used by biologists in determining the gender of tigers when observing their tracks.[16]

Subspecies:,,,,,
There are nine recent subspecies of tiger, three of which are extinct. Their historical range (severely diminished today) ran through Bangladesh, Siberia, Iran, Afghanistan, India, China, and southeast Asia, including some Indonesian islands. The surviving subspecies, in descending order of wild population, are:

Bengal tiger
The Bengal tiger or the Royal Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris tigris) is found in parts of India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, and Burma. It lives in varied habitats: grasslands, subtropical and tropical rainforests, scrub forests, wet and dry deciduous forests, and mangroves. Males in the wild usually weigh 205 to 227 kg (450–500 lb), while the average female will weigh about 141 kg.[17] However, the northern Indian and the Nepalese Bengal tigers are somewhat bulkier than those found in the south of the Indian Subcontinent, with males averaging around 236 kg (520 lb).[18] While conservationists already believed the population to be below 2,000,[19] the most recent audit by the Indian Government's National Tiger Conservation Authority has estimated the number at just 1,411 wild tigers (1165-1657 allowing for statistical error), a drop of 60% in the past decade.[20] Since 1972, there has been a massive wildlife conservation project, known as Project Tiger, to protect the Bengal tiger. The project is considered as one of the most successful wildlife conservation programs[citation needed], though at least one Tiger Reserve (Sariska Tiger Reserve) has lost its entire tiger population to poaching.[21]

Indochinese tiger:[[[]]]
The Indochinese tiger (Panthera tigris corbetti), also called Corbett's tiger, is found in Cambodia, China, Laos, Burma, Thailand, and Vietnam. These tigers are smaller and darker than Bengal tigers: Males weigh from 150–190 kg (330–420 lb) while females are smaller at 110–140 kg (242–308 lb). Their preferred habitat is forests in mountainous or hilly regions. Estimates of the Indochinese tiger population vary between 1,200 to 1,800, with only several hundred left in the wild. The largest current population is in Malaysia, where illegal poaching is strictly controlled, but all existing populations are at extreme risk from habitat fragmentation and inbreeding. In Vietnam, almost three-quarters of the tigers killed provide stock for Chinese pharmacies.

Malayan tiger:((()))
The Malayan tiger (Panthera tigris malayensis), exclusively found in the southern part of the Malay Peninsula, was not considered a subspecies in its own right until 2004. The new classification came about after a study by Luo et al. from the Laboratory of Genomic Diversity Study,[22] part of the National Cancer Institute of the United States. Recent counts showed there are 600–800 tigers in the wild, making it the third largest tiger population, behind the Bengal tiger and the Indochinese tiger. The Malayan tiger is the smallest of the mainland tiger subspecies, and the second smallest living subspecies, with males averaging about 120 kg and females about 100 kg in weight. The Malayan tiger is a national icon in Malaysia, appearing on its coat of arms and in logos of Malaysian institutions, such as Maybank.



Saturday, September 13, 2008

ELEPHANTS


The elephant:-

is a large land mammal in the order Proboscidea. There are three living species: the African Bush Elephant, the African Forest Elephant and the Asian Elephant (also known as the Indian Elephant). Other species have become extinct since the last ice age, the Mammoths being the best-known of these. They were once classified along with other thick skinned animals in a now invalid order, Pachydermata.
Elephants are the largest land animals.[1] The elephant's gestation period is 22 months, the longest of any land animal. At birth it is common for an elephant calf to weigh 120 kilograms (260 lb). An elephant may live as long as 70 years, sometimes longer. The largest elephant ever recorded was shot in Angola in 1956. This male weighed about 12,000 kilograms (26,000 lb),[2] with a shoulder height of 4.2 metres (14 ft), a metre (yard) taller than the average male African elephant.[3] The smallest elephants, about the size of a calf or a large pig, were a prehistoric species that lived on the island of Crete during the Pleistocene epoch.[4]
The elephant has appeared in cultures across the world. They are a symbol of wisdom in Asian cultures and are famed for their memory and intelligence, where they are thought to be on par with cetaceans[5] and hominids.[6] Aristotle once said the elephant was "the beast which passeth all others in wit and mind"[7]. The word "elephant" has its origins in the Greek ἐλέφας, meaning "ivory" or "elephant".[8]
Healthy adult elephants have no natural predators[9], although lions may take calves or weak individuals.[10][11] They are, however, increasingly threatened by human intrusion and poaching. Once numbering in the millions, the African elephant population has dwindled to between 470,000 and 690,000 individuals.[12] The elephant is now a protected species worldwide, with restrictions in place on capture, domestic use, and trade in products such as ivory.




TIGER

TIGER:- is a member of the Felidae family; the largest and the most powerful of the four "big cats" in the genus Panthera.[4] Native to much of eastern and southern Asia, the tiger is an apex predator and an obligate carnivore. Reaching up to 4 metres (13 ft) in total length and weighing up to 300 kilogra:-ms (660 pounds), the larger tiger subspecies are comparable in size to the biggest extinct felids.[5][6] Aside from their great bulk and power, their most recognizable feature is the pattern of dark vertical stripes that overlays near-white to reddish-orange fur, with lighter underparts. The largest subspecies of tiger is the Siberian tiger.
Highly adaptable, tigers range from the Siberian
taiga, to open grasslands, to tropical mangrove swamps. They are territorial and generally solitary animals, often requiring large contiguous areas of habitat that support their prey demands. This, coupled with the fact that they are endemic to some of the more densely populated places on earth, has caused significant conflicts with humans. Of the nine subspecies of modern tiger, three are extinct and the remaining six are classified as endangered, some critically so. The primary direct causes are habitat destruction and fragmentation, and hunting. Their historical range, which once reached from Mesopotamia and the Caucasus through most of South and East Asia, has been radically reduced. While all surviving species are under formal protection, poaching, habitat destruction and inbreeding depression continue to be threats.
Nonetheless, tigers are among the most recognizable and popular of the world's
charismatic megafauna. They have featured prominently in ancient mythology and folklore, and continue to be depicted in modern films and literature. Tigers appear on many flags and coats of arms, as mascots for sporting teams, and as the national animal of several Asian nations.