Category Animal World

Lions, tigers, jaguars, pumas and leopards are different kinds of big cats found all over the world except Australasia. Though big cats differ in size from pet cats, they all belong to the same family and share many characteristics. All are expert hunters, sneaking up on their prey and then pouncing on it. Their sharp claws, powerful jaws and fangs are deadly weapons.

1. Lions

Known for the male’s amazing and majestic mane, the lion is also unusual among all types of big cats in that it lives in social groups called prides. Most other big cats are solitary save for mothers and cubs. Lions are found in the grasslands of Africa and a small region of India. The organization of most prides is a few unrelated or related males, females, and cubs. The males’ job is to protect the pride from being taken over by another group of males, while the females hunt and raise cubs. Most coalitions of males last about three years before they’re ousted by another coalition. Because of this, the lifespan of male lions is much shorter than that of females. Males live about 10 years while females can live as long as 18 years.

2. Tigers

Of all types of big cats, the tiger is the largest in size. It is in even more peril than the lion, and its conservation status overall is endangered. Once ranging from India, Indonesia, and Southeast Asia, and China, it is now confined to small areas in its former range. Stunningly beautiful animals, tigers have orange-red coats with dramatic vertical black stripes that are most prominent on the shoulders and sides. The underside of the animal is white. There’s also white on the cheeks and above the eyes, and white spots on the back of the ears, which are often black.

3. Cheetahs

Thanks to its anatomy, especially the unique flexibility of its spine, the cheetah are considered the fastest land animal. It can achieve short bursts of speed between 58 and 61 miles per hour, which it uses to take down fast prey such as Thomson’s gazelle. This beautiful animal is also vulnerable because of habitat loss and human interference. Some populations are so inbred that the animals are also subject to diseases. It is found in Africa and Iran. Built for speed, the cheetah has a long body, very long legs, and a long tail that seems to help it balance when it makes tight turns. Its fur is tawny, buff, or grayish and covered with dots. The head is small for the body and round, and there are black stripes running from the eyes to the mouth. It ranges in body length from 3.5 to 5 feet and weighs 46 to as much as 160 pounds. 

4. Snow Leopards

This big cat also called the ounce is native to the Himalayas. It used to be the only one of the big cat breeds in the Uncia genus but was moved to Panthera. Its conservation status is vulnerable.

The snow leopard has a dense, fluffy white to gray coat that bears rosettes on the back, the sides, and the tail. There are black spots on the animal’s head and neck, and the belly is a dirty white. Like the cheetah, the snow leopard’s head is small for its body and round. Unlike the cheetah, the snow leopard has a robust body and short legs for moving around the cliffs of the mountains where it lives. Its body ranges from 3.25 to 4.25 feet with a tail that can be 31 to 41 inches long, and it weighs between 55 and 165 pounds. It has large, furry paws that help it walk over snow and a fluffy, long tail that stores fat and can protect the cat’s face when it sleeps.

5. Jaguars

The jaguar is a big cat that lives in the jungle. Specifically, it lives in the jungles of Central and South America and is the only member of the Panthera genus to do so, though it is also found in the grasslands and savannas. This near-threatened cat is often confused with the leopard, but it is a much stockier animal. Like the leopard, its coat is covered in rosettes, though it has broken spots down its spine. Its head is large for its size, its tail is shorter than a leopard’s, and its hindquarters are powerful. As with the leopard, melanistic jaguars, or black panthers, are fairly common.

6. Mountain Lions

This big cat has several names, including cougar, catamount, panther, painter, or puma. Like the jaguar, it’s found in the New World and is a bit smaller, though it does share the other wild cat’s small head and muscular body. Interestingly, some biologists don’t consider the mountain lion one of the big cats just because it doesn’t roar. Yet, it is a large animal with a body length of between 3.6 and 6.5 feet long with a weight of 150 to 230 pounds. Despite this, the mountain lion isn’t always the apex predator in its range, and its kill is sometimes stolen by wolf and coyote packs, bears, and alligators.

7. Leopards

The leopard is a skillful hunter, but like the mountain lion, it’s not always the apex predator in its range. It often has to compete with hyenas and lions. Though it is vulnerable, it has a wider range than the other big cats of the Old World and is found in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, Russia, India, Southeast Asia, and east Asia. There are eight subspecies that look a bit different from each other, with leopards from colder climates having lighter fur than those that live in the jungle and rainforest. Overall, the leopard is vulnerable.

8. Clouded Leopards

Clouded leopards are considered the smallest of the big cats. The cat has a body length is between 2.25 and 3.5 feet and a tail that’s almost as long. This tail helps it balance as it moves among the trees in the Himalayan foothills. Like a squirrel, the clouded leopard can climb down a tree headfirst. This cat weighs between 35 and 51 pounds. Like a house cat, its pupils are vertical slits, and it can purr.

The cat has a powerful bite for its size and takes such large animals as Indian hog deer, binturongs, and pangolins.

Credit :   A-Z animals

Picture Credit : Google 

Takin look a bit large goats but are actually related to sheep. Takin have short horns and a stocky body, covered with dense brown hair. They live just below the treeline, high in the mountains of the eastern Himalayas and in China.

The national animals of Bhutan, the takin is a large, stocky hoofed mammal that sometimes is referred to as a goat antelope. Takins have short legs which are supported by large, two-toed hooves. Their large head is made more distinctive by its long, arched nose and stout horns, which are ridged at the base. These horns are present in both sexes and run parallel to the skull before turning upwards to a short point. The long, shaggy coat is light in color with a dark stripe along the back, and males also have dark faces. Their thick wool often turns black in color on their undersides and legs. The overall coloration ranges from dark blackish to reddish-brown suffused with grayish-yellow in the eastern Himalayas to lighter yellow-gray in the Sichuan Province to mostly golden or (rarely) creamy-white with fewer black hairs in the Shaanxi Province.

Takins are found in the eastern Himalayas. They occur in China, Bhutan, India, and Myanmar. These animals live in various habitats ranging from forested valleys to rocky, grass-covered alpine zones.

Takins are live in small family groups of around 20 individuals, although older males may lead a more solitary life. In the summer, herds of up to 300 individuals gather high on the mountain slopes where favorable feeding sites, salt licks, or hot springs are located. Takins are diurnal creatures feeding in the early morning and late afternoon. These animals may even stand on their hind legs to reach leaves that are over 3 m (10 ft) high. They spend the day in dense vegetation and come out into the open only on cloudy or foggy days. When takins are not feeding, they are usually resting. Each spring, takins gather in large herds and migrate up the mountains. During winter when food becomes scarce, takins moves down to lower, more forested and favor sunny spots upon sunrise. When disturbed, takins gives a ‘cough’ alarm call and the herd retreats into thick bamboo thickets and lies on the ground for camouflage.

Takins are herbivorous (folivorous) animals. They feed on a variety of leaves and grasses, as well as bamboo shoots and flowers. Salt is also an important part of their diets, and groups may stay at a mineral deposit for several days.

According to the IUCN Red List, the total population size of the takin is unknown. However, there are estimated populations of the takin subspecies in the following areas: Golden takin in China – 5,069 individuals and Mishmi takin in Tibet – 3,500 individuals. Currently, this species is classified as Vulnerable (VU) on the IUCN Red List and its numbers today are decreasing.

Main threats to takins include overhunting and the destruction of their natural habitat. Timber harvesting, farming, pasture burning, cane and bamboo cutting, road construction, all this have destroyed large areas of takin habitat. Disturbance from tourism, competition, and diseases from domestic livestock pose another serious threat to these animals.

Credit : Anamalia 

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Ungulates are animals whose toenails have evolved into hooves. The number of toes they can be either odd or even. Cattle, deer and hippopotamuses are all even-toed. Horse belong to the odd-toed group, as do rhinoceroses.

The ungulates arose from early mammalian stock at the start of the Cenozoic era some 60 million years ago and by the Eocene, some 20 million years later, they had become large, heavy-bodied herbivores many of which were destined to be replaced, in the Miocene, by fleet-footed grazers. Even in the early days of the ungulates three distinct groups began to emerge. Thus although the cow group (even-toed) and the horse group (odd-toed) may seem linked they have a long history of separate evolution.

Of the two, the even-toed species have proved to be the better survivors for almost all the medium to large plant-eaters in the world belong to this group. The more primitive even-toed species include pigs and the peccaries (found in South America), which have four well-developed toes on each limb. They are omnivorous in their choice of food and their dentition is less specialized than in many other forms. Hippopotamuses, which retreat to water during the daytime, come ashore to feed at night, and in some areas of Africa are major crop thieves. Camels, which are highly adapted for desert life, have only two toes on each foot, as do their South American relatives the closely similar llama, guanaco, and alpaca. All of these animals have some upper teeth.

The upper front teeth of the other even-toed, cud-chewing ungulates are missing and are replaced by a horny pad, but they can take in food tremendously fast, often using the tongue to tear at vegetation. The food is passed to a holding compartment in the stomach and regurgitated later to be masticated thoroughly before being swallowed a second time, after which digestion proper starts. One advantage of chewing the cud is that food which may have been gathered in dangerous areas and rapidly eaten can be digested later in a place of comparative safety. Deer, giraffes, antelopes, cattle, sheep, and goats all chew the cud.

Odd toed-animals were at one time more numerous than at present; today only horses, rhinoceroses, and tapirs survive. The rarity of the first two is largely due to persecution by man, and the true wild horses and asses and the three species of Asiatic rhinoceroses are among the rarest mammals in the world, although the zebra is relatively common in parts of Africa. No odd-toed animal chews the cud, and none has any true horns, those of the rhinoceros being made of compressed hair. The rhinos have three toes on each foot, the tapirs have four on the front feet and three on the hind feet, while horses (including donkeys and zebras) have lost all but the large central toes of each foot. The balance of the leg is therefore completely different from that of the even-toed animals.

A group of animals found in Africa and the Near East and thought to be closely related to the elephants is that of the hyraxes, small, dumpy yet agile creatures which live socially in forested or rocky areas. All have hoof-like nails on the four toes of the front feet and a large claw on the innermost of the three toes of the hind feet.

Credit : David darling 

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At most six metres in height, it is the giraffe. Almost half of the animal’s total standing height is the length of its neck. Its legs, which can be almost two metres long, contribute to most of the rest. Its height allows the giraffe to feed on the top layer of leaves on trees that other herbivores cannot reach.

Giraffes are the tallest living land animals on earth! No one has towered over these creatures since the time of the dinosaurs. Standing at over 18 ft. tall, these creatures are long-necked and long-legged, making these lanky animals perfectly built for browsing on tall trees and branches, taking advantage of food sources other herbivores cannot. Read on to learn about the giraffe.

These tip-top creatures stand in at 18 ft. tall, with a record height for the males of 19.3 ft. They have long legs, long necks, and relatively short bodies. Their heads are topped with bony horns, and their tails are tipped with a tuft of fur.

A short mane runs down the length of their long necks, and their coat is covered with a blotched/blocky pattern. Their base color is light cream, and their spots range from dark brown to burnt orange in color.

These creatures are relatively specialized to specific habitats. Though they can survive in a number of different ecosystems they have preferences for specific types of trees. This means that they thrive in environments like savannahs and sparse woodlands. They are more common in open woodlands than they are in more dense vegetation. When food is more scarce they tend to congregate around evergreen trees and bushes.

There are a number of different subspecies (or species depending on what research you believe) spread across different regions of Africa. Some populations are quite fragmented, putting them in danger of genetic inbreeding. Some populations are found in southern Africa, eastern Africa, and a few areas of sub-Saharan Africa.

These large mammals are herbivores, which means that they primarily feed on plants. Their primary diet is the leaves of trees and bushes, but they will also eat branches, bark, twigs, and some fruit. Some of their preferred plant species are acacia, apricot, and mimosa trees. They use their long tongues to carefully pluck and strip leaves from branches.

These large mammals are social, but live in flexible groups. While they are almost always found with other members of their own species, they do not keep the same groups over long periods. Most of the time, groups will consist of all males, or all females, though mixed-sex groupings do occur. They are generally quiet and non-confrontational, though males will fight during the breeding season.

Credit : Animals.NETT 

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An elephant’s most remarkable feature are it long trunk and fan-like ears. The trunk is actually an extended, highly flexible nose that an elephant uses to pick up food, carry water to its mouth, greet other elephant, pick up heavy objects and lots of other things. The ears, which are covered with blood vessels, help it to keep cool, elephants also have a giant teeth called tusks, which they use for digging or for defence.

An elephant’s heart constitutes about 0.5% of the animal’s total body weight, so if an elephant weighs 10,000 lb, then the elephant’s heart would be expected to weigh 50 lb – if an elephant weighs 4500 kg, then that elephant’s heart may weigh 27 kg.

The intestines of an elephant may be 19 meters in length, or more than 60 feet long. At 5 inches, or 12.7 centimeters long, elephants have the longest eyelashes in the world. The brain of an elephant is larger than that of any other land mammal, weighing between 8 and 12 pounds, whereas a human’s brain weighs 3 pounds on average. The growth and development of an elephant’s brain is similar to that of a human’s. Both are born with small brain masses. Similar to a human being, there is considerable growth and development in the brain as a young elephant grows up. As the mass of the brain increases so does the learning ability of young elephants. Brain size provides a rough measure of mental flexibility; large mammalian brains are associated with superior intelligence and complex social behavior.

The elephant’s body has a number of special features because it is so large and heavy. The skull, parts of which are six inches thick, contains many air spaces making the inside appear something like a honeycomb or sponge. This adaptation has allowed the skull to grow to a large size without enormous weight. The legs of an elephant are in an almost vertical position under the body, like the legs on a table. This design provides strong support for the massive body and huge weight that the legs have to carry. It also allows elephants to sleep standing up without the risk of their legs buckling.

Generally, the size of the ears is directly related to the amount of heat dissipated through them. The difference in ear size between African and Asian elephants can be based on their geographic range. The African elephant usually lives in a hotter, sunnier climate than the Asian elephant and needs larger ears to aid in thermoregulation.

Although ears help to regulate body temperature in both species, they are more effective in African elephants in that regard because the ears are larger. Flapping the ears helps to cool an elephant in two ways. In addition to enabling the ears to act as a fan and move air over the rest of the elephant’s body, flapping also cools the blood as it circulates through the veins in the ears. As the cooler blood re-circulates through the elephant’s body, the animal’s core temperature will decrease several degrees.

The hotter it is the faster the elephants will flap its ears. On a windy day, however, an elephant may find it easier to simply stand facing into the wind and hold its ears outward to take advantage of the breeze.

An elephant may also spray water on its ears, which also will cool down the blood before it returns to the rest of the body. Large ears also trap more sound waves than smaller ones.

Elephants may feed for up to 16 hours a day. In the wild one animal can consume as much as 600 pounds of food in a single day, although 250 – 300 pounds is a more typical amount. In a zoo, a typical adult elephant may eat 4-5 bales of hay and 10 – 18 pounds, or 4.5 to 8 kg, of grain a day. This amounts to a yearly quantity of more than 29,000 kg of hay and 2700 kg of feed per animal, The normal daily water consumption is 25 – 50 gallons per animal, or 100 – 200 liters.

Credit : International elephant foundation 

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