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Tamandua (four-toed anteater) Tamandua tetradactyla lives in South America, from southern Colombia and Venezuela to northern Argentina. The wild Tamandua population is steadily declining due to deforestation and poaching.
They inhabit humid tropical forests, as well as open spaces of savannas near streams and rivers. They equip their homes in empty burrows, they can dig themselves a hole in the ground.
Four-toed anteaters often inhabit tree hollows. Because of their long claws, they walk slowly and clumsily on the ground, so Tamandua prefer to climb trees, balancing with the tail.
Compared with their counterparts, giant anteaters, whose length reaches one and a half meters, and weight 40 kg, tamandua have much more modest data. The length of the tamandua's body is from 55 to 85 cm, the tail is 40-50 cm, the weight is 4-5 kg.
The crowned pigeon Goura cristata lives in New Guinea and on the adjacent islands.
The first specimens were brought to Europe in 1900 to the Rotterdam Zoo. The body length of these huge pigeons is up to 80 cm, weight up to 2.5 kg. Life expectancy is approximately 20 years.
It is endemic to New Guinea and adjacent islands. They choose dense forests, swamps, and flooded areas as places to settle.
The crowned pigeon feeds mainly on berries, fruits and seeds. Birds are looking for their food, first of all, in the litter of the forest - at the same time they never stir it up, which is not typical for pigeons
The Cape fox Vulpes chama or silver fox is the only "true fox" found in sub-Saharan Africa. It is also called the South African version of the fennec fox because of its equally large ears.
This is a small animal, its length is from 45 to 60 cm, not counting the tail (30-40 cm). The height at the withers is 30-35 cm, and the weight is 2.5-4.5 kg.
The Cape Fox is nocturnal and is most active shortly before dawn or after sunset; it can be spotted in the early morning and early evening. During the day, it usually hides in underground burrows, hollows or dense thickets.
It can dig its own burrow, although it usually modifies an abandoned burrow of another species, such as the white hare, according to its specific requirements.
This Cape fox was filmed in the Kalahari Desert, Botswana
It's a zombie snail! The parasitic worm Leucochloridium paradoxum took over her motor functions and eye stalks, turning them into caterpillar imitators so that birds could eat them.
The length of adult leukochloridium is up to 2 cm, width up to 1 mm. The adult form lives in the intestines of some passerine birds, attaching to the host's body with oral and abdominal suckers. Eggs with bird droppings fall on the grass, where they must be swallowed by the intermediate host of the parasite - the Succinea amber snail. In the body of a snail, a larva develops from eggs - a miracidium.
Thanks to the coloring and movement of the snail horns, they become attractive to birds pecking and swallowing the "caterpillar". This is how the parasite gets into the main host.
This is how Intelligent Design Theory works through Evolution. By the way, maybe God just created it out of boredom...
The dwarf (two-toed) anteater Cyclopes didactylus lives in Central and South America - from southern Mexico in the north to Brazil in the south.
Its length together with the tail is 35-45 cm (body 15-25 cm and tail 15-20 cm), and its weight is up to 400 g (average 266 g).
Like other anteaters, it has no teeth, but it has a long and sticky tongue, equipped with powerful muscles. The dwarf anteater has a prehensile, naked tail at the end, which helps him to move along the branches of trees.
This animal leads a predominantly nocturnal lifestyle. Prefers tropical multi-level forests, where he can move from place to place without leaving the branches of trees and where he feels as safe as possible.
This is a rather slow anteater, its main food is (yes, you knew!) ants (this baby consumes from 100 to 8000 ants per day). Additional food is other insects - for example, small bugs
The haragua lizard Sphaerodactylus ariasae, only 16 mm from nose to tail, is the smallest in the world. In fact, it is the smallest vertebrate animal that can reproduce on land.
The newly discovered lizard lives on Isla Beata, a small wooded island in the Caribbean Sea near the Dominican Republic. Researchers believe that this lizard lives only here.
"Our discovery shows that we still don't know everything about species on Earth, even in areas very close to the United States," says one of the scientists who discovered this lizard, Blair Hedges.
"The island of this tiny lizard is closer to Miami than Miami is to Puerto Rico, and we didn't even know about the existence of this species, although biologists have been studying this area for several hundred years."
Hedges says the habitat this species needs to survive is rapidly disappearing. "People are cutting down trees even in national parks, and if they remove the forest, these lizards and other species will disappear."..