Jaguars are excellent swimmers and divers, and also know how to get food in the water.
Читать полностью…Swans find a mate at the age of two.
They are tightly bound by invisible bonds and continue to mate with each other year after year.
The four-winged cuckoo Tapera naevia has settled in South America - from Mexico and Trinidad south to Bolivia and Argentina.
And she is famous for her unsurpassed dance . Yes, we also initially thought it was a clever video montage, but no. Judge for yourself: only someone who saw this dance live could call an ordinary bird with two wings four-winged!
This bird occupies an important place in Brazilian folklore and is related to the legend of Sisi - a one-legged mulatto boy with holes in his palms, an incorrigible joker smoking a pipe.
One of the magical properties of Sisi is the ability to transform into an elusive matitapere bird, whose melancholic song seems to come from nowhere...
The Canadian crane is recognized as the oldest living bird. His ancestors lived on earth 10 million years ago, which was confirmed by the recent discovery of paleontologists.
Читать полностью…Bullfinch Pyrrhula pyrrhula is a songbird of the finch family, it appears in our field of vision in winter as the most active bird of this time of year.
Bullfinch is slightly larger in size than a sparrow: body length 15-19 cm, wingspan 24-30 cm, weight 24-36 g. At the first glance at this bird, its red cheeks, lower neck, abdomen and sides are striking - and the tone and intensity of the coloring of the underside of the body depends on the subspecies and individual characteristics. On the bird's head is a black cap that appears with age.
The bullfinch breeds in the taiga and mixed forests of Eurasia from the British Isles, the Atlantic coast and Scandinavia to the coasts of the Sea of Okhotsk and Kamchatka - in coniferous and mixed forests, mainly on coniferous trees, most often at a low altitude (1.5-2 m)
A green snake covered with fur was found in Thailand. It is a dragon-like creature, 60 centimeters long.
Читать полностью…The spoonbill Platalea leucorodia is a wading bird of the ibis family, its body length is up to 1 m, weight is 1.2-2 kg, and wingspan is 115-135 cm. The cap is all white, and the beak and legs are black. In the mating attire, the spoonbills develop a tuft on the back of the head and an ochreous spot at the base of the neck. A distinctive feature of these birds is a spoon-shaped beak, with which they filter the mud in search of food.
The spoonbill breeds in Southern Europe, Asia and North Africa. In Russia, this bird is found in the Krasnodar Territory, on Lake Manych-Gudilo, in the lower reaches of the Don, Volga, Terek rivers, as well as in the south of the Trans-Baikal Territory, Krasnoyarsk Territory, Tuva and Khakassia. European spoonbills winter in Central and East Africa, Asian - in India and China.
The spoonbills inhabit shallow reservoirs or shallow, slow-flowing rivers with muddy bottoms, as well as both fresh and salt lakes.
The Myrmarachne formicaria spider not only mimics ants externally, but also imitates their gait and the movement of antennae, which act as two front paws.
But the most interesting thing is that during the movement they periodically freeze, imitating the "blind" ants, who need time to think about the trajectory of their movement.
Mangalica is a domestic breed of pigs native to Hungary, covered from head to toe with curly hair. The breed was bred in the XIX century. It is generally believed that due to the peculiarities of the coat and physiology, the mangalitsa is closest to extinct pigs - such as the Lincolnshire curly-haired pig, which used to live in England.
Interesting fact: pigs that are starting to be kept as pets eventually lose their fur, because it ceases to be needed. Such wool is needed exclusively to protect the mangalitsa from cold and insects. Like wild boars, mangalitz piglets are born striped, with a camouflage color that changes with age.
In Hungary, these pigs are recognized as a national treasure.
The daytime butterflies of Curetis acuta are unremarkable, but here are their caterpillars!
The spikes popping out of her horns are not poisonous, but they can still scare off a predator. And there is an assumption that they spray a substance with an unpleasant odor... Maybe we didn't sniff.
These butterflies belong to the family of pigeons, the length of their front wing is only 21-23 mm, and they are common in such exotic countries as the Korean Peninsula, Japan (except Hokkaido), China, Taiwan, Indochina, Myanmar and the Himalayas
The hyena-like dog Lycaon pictus resembles a hyena only with a black mask on its muzzle - its physique is light and lean, its legs are high and strong, its ears are large, high-set oval "locators" that give the head a recognizable silhouette.
The body length is about a meter, the height at the withers is up to 78 cm, and the weight is 18-36 kg - it varies greatly and depends on whether the animal is full or hungry, since a hyena-like dog is able to eat up to 9 kg of meat in one sitting.
This wild dog was once widespread throughout the African steppes and savannas south of the Sahara, but now its range has become mosaic - mainly in national parks and in undeveloped landscapes in Namibia, Botswana, Tanzania, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and South Africa.
Packs of hyena-like dogs chase and exterminate a large number of ungulates. Their usual game is medium-sized antelopes (impala, duiker, Thomson's gazelle, redunka) and old, sick or wounded individuals of larger ungulates (kudu, wildebeest, eland, zebra).
On an average day, an adult small panda eats an amount of food equal in weight to a third of its weight.
Читать полностью…The reed cat ( or marsh lynx) Felis chaus is larger than any domestic cat (with the exception of the mainkoon): body length 60-90 cm and weight 8-12 kg.
The body of the reed cat is relatively short, the legs are high, the tail is short (21-30 cm), there are small tassels on the ears. The color is yellow-brownish, monotonous, the bottom is lighter. The reed cat looks like a lynx.
In Russia, it occurs in the flat part of Dagestan and further along the coast of the Caspian Sea, the range reaches the mouth of the Volga along the Terek and Kuma rivers to Stavropol and North Ossetia. About 500 individuals live on the territory of Russia.
The reed cat is perfectly adapted to living in dense thickets of reeds, reeds and thorny shrubs along the low-lying banks of rivers, lakes and seas. It feeds on birds, rodents, hares. Previously, it was believed that it could harm hunting.
By crossing a reed cat with a domestic cat of the Abyssinian breed, a breed called house and (chausie) was created.
With the onset of frost, hedgehogs tightly close the entrance to the burrow and fall into hibernation until about April.
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