Category Animal Records

How many species of swans are there?

How many species of swans are there? On which continents can they be found? When does a swan sing? Read on to find out fascinating details about these graceful birds

Six species

Swans are the among the largest aquatic birds known for their striking beauty, elegance and graceful movements. There are six swan species and they are native to five continents (except Africa and Antarctica). Asia has no native species, but migrants can be seen in its eastern and northern parts. Except for the black swan and the black-necked swan, all swans the mute swan, the tundra swan and its Eurasian sub-species the Bewick's swan, and the trumpeter and whooper swans are white.

The mute swan is from Eurasia. It is a large, beautiful bird with snow-white plumage, an orange beak with a black knob at the base, and a graceful, curving neck. It holds its wings slightly raised above its back while swimming. It is the mute swan that figures in Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale, ‘The Ugly Duckling’.

In legend, the mute swan is said to burst into song only when dying. The expression 'swan song', the last work of a great person, derives from this. In reality, it makes a variety of sounds ranging from hissing and growling to bugling, snorting and whistling! The sounds are not as loud as that of other swan species, hence the name. It is a huge eater, gobbling up more than 3 kg of aquatic vegetation a day.

Largest waterfowl

The trumpeter swan of North America is the largest waterfowl in the world. It looks similar to the mute, but has a completely black beak. It is 1.8m long and weighs over 13 kg. Its weight, size and wingspan of 3m mean that it requires a long stretch of open water for the take-off, which sounds like a horse galloping!

Trumpeter swans were widely hunted and by the late 1800s, they were on the brink of extinction. Women used the skin as powder puffs and hats were adorned with the feathers. The long flight feathers were coveted for writing quills. It was only an intensive conservation campaign and a ban on hunting in the 2000s that saved the bird.

Their deep honking calls give them their name. Trumpeters are unusual in that they incubate their eggs by covering them with their webbed feet.

Fact file

*Swans usually mate for life. They engage in a graceful courtship, bobbing their heads and bowing to each other with much ruffling of feathers and lifting of wings.

*All swans are aggressive in defending their nests and the larger species may attack people venturing too close.

*A male swan is a cob, a female swan is a pen and a baby is called a cygnet.

*The existence of black swans was once considered impossible till they were discovered in Australia. The black-necked swan lives in South America.

*The wind rushes through the wings of American tundra swans in flight giving them the moniker 'whistling swans’.

*Male black swans spend more time incubating the eggs than females.

*The whooper swan of northern Europe, named for its loud call, is the national bird of Finland.

* 'Swan upping' is an annual ceremony in England in which mute swans on the River Thames are rounded up, caught, ringed and then released.

Human swan

In December 2016, Sacha Dench, a 41-year-old British conservationist, became the first woman to cross the English Channel in a motorised paraglider. She was following migrating Bewick's swans from Russia to Britain.

Dench made the 10-week, 7200-km journey to study the reasons for their steadily declining numbers. She discovered that the migrating swans were shot down and that many of the wetlands where they usually rest and feed en route had disappeared.

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The curious case of the cheetah

When the Indian government brought the big cat to India last September, there was palpable excitement. However, in a matter of months, at least three adults – and a few cubs born in India – have died, turning the focus once again on the viability of such an ambitious project. In five points, here’s a quick look at all that’s been happening.

  1. Cheetah goes extinct

India has been a proud host to several big cat species, including the Asiatic lion, the Bengal tiger, and the snow leopard. More than seven decades earlier, it was also home to the Asiatic cheetah, found in the wild today only in Iran. Plagued by hunting habitat loss, and reduction in prey base, their numbers plunged dramatically over the years; the last of this carnivore died way back in 1947. Five years later it was declared officially extinct in our country – “the only large mammal to become extinct since independence”.

  1. Bringing the big cat home

For decades, India had considered bringing the Asiatic cheetah from Iran. However, since Iran itself was host to only a small number of this animal, India could not move ahead with that plan. (Today, the number of Asiatic cheetahs in Iran stands at a paltry 12: the country recently lost a 10-month-old cub born in captivity.) Meanwhile, the idea of ‘African Cheetah Introduction Project in India’ shaped up in 2009, but it failed to take off for over a decade. When it appeared as if it could come to fruition after 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic set in, delaying it further. The wait finally ended in 2022, when the world’s fastest land animal came to our country.

  1. The reintroduction begins

With great fanfare, as many as eight cheetahs arrived from Namibia last September. A few months later, 12 more arrived from South Africa. (It is said that the plan is to bring a total of 50 in the next five to 10 years.) They reached an enclosure at Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh. Since they arrived from a different country (and even a continent), they need time for acclimatisation (getting used to their new surroundings). So, gradually over a period of time they are to be released into the wild from their enclosures. But, it seems, not all 20 will survive the relocation.

  1. Births and deaths

In March, a female cheetah brought in from Namibia died, possibly due to kidney ailment. That would be the first of a few more deaths to follow. In April, a male, belonging to the batch from South Africa, died, due to cardiac failure. In May, a female cheetah from South Africa died, believed to be from injuries during mating. Meanwhile, just a couple of days after the death of the first cheetah, a female from Namibia gave birth to four cubs. But that joy was to be short-lived – in May, at least three of them died due to reasons such as weakness and dehydration.

  1. Hope and reality

The government and the supporters of the project have hoped the reintroduction is a chance to restore the biodiversity link that was broken due to the animal’s extinction. Viewing it as a step towards wildlife education and conservation awareness, they also believe that the species can revive the grasslands it once roamed. However, many conservationists and critics have all along said that the project is unviable due to several reasons. One of them is that Kuno has neither enough space nor prey for the big cat. In fact, following the deaths of the cheetahs, the Supreme Court itself has come down heavily on the government, urging it to home some of these carnivores in other States, including Rajasthan. While stating that such deaths are not unusual, the government has said it would explore other places for the animal’s release into the wild.

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What extinct species came back 2022?

The year 2022 has seen quite a number of species getting reintroduced into the wild while some were discovered. Here are a few animals and birds that made to our list of animals in spotlight.

TASMANIAN TIGER

The 1930s saw the marsupial Tasmanian Tiger go extinct. Now efforts are being taken to resurrect the animal using gene-editing technology. The $15-million project hopes to reintroduce the animal to Tasmania, its native place. This attempt is expected to bring back the ecological balance in the region. Seen here is a stuffed Tasmanian tiger which was declared extinct in 1936.

SNOW CRABS

A huge collapse in the population of snow crabs was found after 11 billion snow crabs disappeared off the coast of Alaska. The crabs are disappearing in the Bering Sea and scientists believe that global warming could have resulted in the vanishing of these crabs. The sea was warmer in the previous years and this could have been the reason for the mass die-off. The decline in the numbers were noted when the survey was conducted in 2021. The survey result was confirmed this year too and it was ascertained that the crabs didn’t move to any other place, but disappeared. Their total numbers fell to about 1.9 billion in 2022, from 11.7 billion in 2018.

CHEETAH

The last cheetah died in India in 1947. And over 70 years after the animal was declared extinct in India, the country launched its ambitious programme “Project Cheetah to reintroduce cheetahs into the wild. Eight cheetahs including five females and three males were introduced as they were brought in from Namibia, southern Africa to Kuno National Park, Madhya Pradesh. Seen here is a cheetah after being released inside a special enclosure of the Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh.

IVORY-BILLED WOODPECKER

For long researchers believed that the ivory-billed woodpecker got extinct. But this year, a few researchers have claimed that the very bird which was declared extinct by the U.S. government was spotted in the forests of Louisiana. The researchers have claimed its spotting based on a series of grainy pictures and observations of the bird. Once relatively common, the numbers of ivory-billed woodpeckers started dropping with habitat loss due to human intervention and hunting. It is the largest woodpecker in the U.S.

APIS KARINJODIAN

Did you know that the last time a honey bee species was discovered in India was in 1798? And now, after a gap of 224 years, a new honey bee species endemic to Western Ghats has been discovered. Named Apis Karinjodian, the species has been classified as ‘near threatened’ by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). With the new addition, now we have a total of 11 species of duster honey bees in the world.

WILD BISON

The year saw the wild bison get reintroduced to the U.K. for the first time in thousands of years. The species classified as near threatened was introduced into a woodland in Kent. The bison is being reintroduced as part of the Wilder Blean project. The idea for the reintroduction of the species is to restore natural landscapes. It is also a rewilding attempt to check if the animal’s behaviour can help transform a commercial pine forest into a natural forestland.

GREAT INDIAN BUSTARD

The Great Indian Bustard (GIB) came into focus once again this year when the Supreme Court of India asked if a Project GIB on the lines of Project Tiger could be launched to protect the bird. Found mainly in Rajasthan and Gujarat, the GIB has been labelled as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The SC bench asked this whilst hearing petitions on the situation of the bird and their deaths in large numbers due to electrocution from high-transmission power lines.

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How many ants are there for every person on Earth?

There are 2.5 million ants for every human on earth. A new study has estimated that the total global population of ants is a mind-blowing 20 quadrillion (20 by 15 zeroes) or approximately 2.5 million ants crawling around for every human.

The combined biomass of all ants on Earth amounts to 12 megatons of carbon. Biomass is the total quantity or weight of organisms in a given area. This exceeds the combined biomass of wild birds and mammals (2 million tons) and equals 20% of human biomass.

There are more than 12,000 known species of ants, generally black, brown or red in colour. Ants are most abundant in tropical and subtropical regions; they can be found nearly everywhere, except Antarctica, Greenland, Iceland and some island nations.

Ants serve as key ecological players for nutrient cycling, decomposition processes, plant seed dispersal and the agitation of soil. “Think about the amount of organic matter that 20 quadrillion ants transport, remove, recycle and eat. In fact, ants are so essential for the smooth working of biological processes that they can be seen as ecosystem engineers. The late ant scientist E.O. Wilson once called them ‘the little things that run the world’,” says entomologist Patrick Schultheiss, co-author of the study.

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What are the fastest animals in the wild?

In the world of animals, speed defines everything. You need to run faster than your predator to survive. Here we take a look at some of the fastest animals in the wild.

BLACK MARLIN – THE FASTEST FISH

It is estimated that the black marlin can go to a top speed of up to 80 miles per hour. It is also one of the top predators of the seas and uses its speed for hunting and evasion. They are seen to inhabit the shallow waters, close to shores, and are seen in the Indian, and Pacific Oceans.

CHEETAH-FASTEST LAND ANIMAL –

This cat can sprint faster than 70 miles per hour. A cheetah can go from 0 to 60 miles per hour in less than three seconds! However, this mammal can maintain this speed only for short distances. Cheetahs live in the wild in scattered parts of central, eastern, and southern Africa. A small number of wild cheetahs live in Iran. India was once home to a thriving cheetah population which went extinct duelto hunting and habitat loss, Recently efforts were taken to reintroduce the cheetah to India with eight cheetahs being brought in from Namibia in southern Africa. The ambitious cheetah reintroduction project is being carried out in the Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh.

PRONGHORN-FASTEST LAND ANIMAL (LONG DISTANCES)

The cheetah may be the fastest sprinter but the pronghom is the fastest “long-distance runner as it can maintain a speed of nearly 35 miles per hour over long distances. Also called American antelope, the pronghom is distinct in being the only animal that has branching horns that it sheds annually. It lives in open plains and semi-deserts. It has remarkable vision and can identify predators at distances of up to 0.6 miles.

PEREGRINE FALCON –

The fastest flying animal A bird of prey, the fastest bird is the Peregrine falcon. It is seen on every continent except Antarctica. It is known for its diving speed during flight. It can attempt a mid-air dive at speeds of even 200 miles an hour. This is also how they hunt, by flying high and diving at their prey.

HORSE FLY-FASTEST INSECT

Large and agile, these flies can attain a speed of 90 miles per hour. It is considered the fastest insect in the animal kingdom. They can be as tiny as a housefly or as large as a bumble bee. Considered pests to both humans and animals, they are usually found around streams, marshes, and wooded areas. They are carriers of various diseases.

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What are the specialities of three-toed sloths?

The three-toed sloths are considered the slowest land mammals. Their slow pace is rather famous and, on an average, it is 0.24 km/h. They are close to the size of a large cat or a small dog with their head and body having a combined length of 45 cm and a weight of 3.5-4.5 kg.

Sloths are designed for a life on the treetops. Most of their life is spent hanging from branches with a powerful grip, which is provided by their long claws. This capacity enables them to sleep in the trees-sometimes as long as 15-20 hours a day.

Sloths give birth while hanging from the trees. Their babies are often seen clinging to their mothers, and they travel by hanging onto their mothers for the first nine months of their lives. On land, their weak hind legs provide no power and their long claws become an obstacle. If they are caught on land, the three-toed sloths have no chance to escape the predators, such as big cats, and can only try to defend themselves by clawing and biting.

Picture Credit : Google