They are excellent climbers and can jump with both legs using their flippers to help.
They mainly eat small fish like sardines or anchovies but they also like squid.
They nest in burrows and after mating they stay together to take care of their offspring. They normally lay 2 eggs. The time needed by the chicks to break the egg and hatch can last as long as three days. Chicks stay in the nest for three or four weeks while parents take turns to feed them
Slender Tailed Meercat
Meercats are members of the mongoose family. They are found in Africa and live in the
desert. They live in large groups. Within the group, each meerkat has a job to
do and they change their jobs every day. One day you might be a babysitter and
the next you might be a lookout.
Meerkat live underground and digs lots of tunnels with many
entrances and exits. During the day they are outside and during the night they
stow themselves away in the tunnels.
They also shelter from the afternoon heat in the tunnels.
Meerkats have dark rings around their eyes. This helps to
see better because it helps to reduce the glare from the sun. They also have a clear eyelid they can use as
a dust shield for their eyes. They can also close their ears to keep out the
dirt when they are digging.
Meerkats are omnivores so they eat plants and animals. They
eat insects, fruit, birds, eggs and lizards.
They can even eat poisonous scorpions. They have to forage and hunt every day.
Prairie Dog
Prairie dogs are named because of
their dog like barking sound, but they are a small rodent also known as a ground
squirrel. Their tail is 3-4 inches long and they are brown with black eyes and
short legs with claws. They live on the
plains in the United States. They live
in small family groups in burrows under the ground. The family group is called a coterie and is
made up of a male, a few females and their young. Several family groups make up
a prairie dog town. Some towns can cover
miles and miles of land.
Prairie dogs eat grasses, leafy
plants, roots and seed. They live for
3-4 years and hibernate during the winter. Predators of prairie dogs are hawks, coyotes, badgers, snakes and eagles. To protect themselves they have sentries who keep a look out and bark if they see danger so the others can run into the burrow. They make tall mounds at the entrances to their burrows so they can keep a good lookout from high up.
Oriental Short-Clawed Otter
The short clawed otter is the
smallest of all the otters. They are
called short clawed otters because their claws are shorter than all other
otters. They use their claws to search
through mud and under rocks to find their food. They also have less webbing than other
otters.
They live in rivers, wetlands and
mangroves and they live for 8-10 years.
Otters spend half their day on
land and half in the water.
When they swim their tail acts as
a rudder for steering and their hind feet propel them through the water. They
have two layers of fur and a layer of body fat to keep them warm.
Short clawed otters eat crabs and
crayfish as well as frogs and small mammals.
They live in loose family groups
and a breeding pair will have two litters a year. Both parents help raise their
young.
They build a nest of grass and
the cubs don’t open their eyes until they are about 40 days old. They don’t
learn to eat and swim until they are about 9 weeks old.
Some noises they make are
greeting calls, mating calls and alarm calls.
They make these with yips, barks, whistles and chattering.
Otters are very clever and they
leave their crabs out in the sun until the heat cracks their shell open. Some fishermen have trained them to chase
fish into nets.
Giraffe
Giraffes are the tallest land
animals on earth. Their necks can be almost 2 metres long. Giraffes live in
Africa on open grasslands or savannas. Giraffe’s
spots are made for camouflage because their dark and light spots blends in with
the shadows and sunlight in the trees.
Giraffes have one stomach with 4
chambers which helps with digesting their food.
Giraffes have a very powerful kick strong enough to kill a lion.
They are pregnant for 14-15
months and they give birth standing up.
The calf has to fall 7 feet to the ground. The purpleness of a giraffes tongue is used
as a sunscreen and they are covered in bristly hair to help when they are
eating Acacia trees. They eat leaves and
shoots in the trees much higherer than other animals can reach. Their long
tongues help pull leaves from the trees.
They can eat over 45kg of leaves and twigs a day.
Giraffes can run up to 55km per
hour but only in short bursts. They
sleep for less than 2 hours a day and they can sleep standing up. They live for up to 25 years in the wild. The bumps on their heads are called
ossicones. These are to protect the head
when males fight. Female ossicones are
smaller and have a tuft of fur on top.
Giant Anteater
The giant anteater has no teeth but they can eat 35,000 ants
every day. It uses its sharp claws to
tear an opening in an anthill and put its long snout in. It can flick its
tongue up to 160 times per minute. It
has the longest tongue of any animal and it can extend 2 feet outside its
mouth.
The giant anteater is 7 feet long from its snout to its
tail. Anteaters live on their own and
have only one baby each year which sometimes rides on its mother’s back.
Ring Tailed Lemur
Ring Tailed lemurs are my
favourite animals. I like them because
of their looks and the way they live. They live in Madagascar in the forest.
Their tails are longer than their bodies and have black and white rings which
is how they are named. The rings make it easier for other lemurs to see them in
the forest. They have soft, thick,
woolly fur. They have leather-like pads
on their feet to help them grip on slippery surfaces. They are an endangered species because for a
long time people have been taking down their forests, hunting them for their
meat and stealing them to sell as fancy pets.
They breed well in captivity so there are lots in zoos. The males put smells from glands in their
bottoms onto their tails and wave it at rivals.
This is called stink fighting.
Ring tailed lemurs spend a third
of their day on the ground which is more than any other lemur species. They eat fruit and leaves as well as flowers,
spiders and insects. They make all kinds of noises like wails, howls, purrs and
chirps. Lots of people think they look a
bit like cats. They live in groups if
about 17 members.
They usually have one baby but
can also have twins and carry their
babies on their belly’s for the first few weeks then on their backs. Babies
begin to climb in the trees when they are 3 weeks old.
They like to sunbathe and sit
with their arms oustretched facing the sun.
Greater Roadrunner
Roadrunners are members of the
Cuckoo family and lives in desert areas of the United States. They can fly but
live mainly on the ground. They can run
up to 20 miles per hour and prefer to run than to fly because their short wings
can only keep them in the air for a few seconds at a time. Roadrunners mate for life and work together
to build their nests which are made from sticks, snakeskin and leaves. They
next on low trees or cactus and the female lays 3-10 white eggs. The male is in charge of incubating the eggs
because the female’s body temperature drops at night. Both parents care for the chicks and they can
leave the next within 18 days but the parents care for them for another month.
Pallas Cat
The Pallas' cat is named after a naturalist. He thought it was an ancestor of the persian cat.
Pallas’ cats are only about the size of a domestic cat but
they have a lot of fur so they look bigger. Their fur is twice as long on their
belly and tail as it is on their top.
This is because they hunt on snow. They live in Asia in the cold steppes and
grasslands.
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