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The common shrew is the largest, cutest, and most venomous mole in Europe. Its body length reaches 10 cm, and its tail length is 8 cm. It weighs up to 20 grams.
It inhabits areas from Britain to the Pacific coast within the forest zone. In the north, it is found in Scandinavia up to the shores of the Arctic Ocean.
The common shrew is an excellent swimmer and diver. It attacks not only invertebrates and fish but also mouse-like rodents and chicks of waterfowl.
The shrew's saliva is toxic because it contains a specific secretion with paralyzing properties. When bitten, the venomous saliva enters the bloodstream, immobilizing but not killing the prey.
It breeds during the warm season from April to September. A litter consists of 3 to 12 offspring, with 2 to 3 litters per year. In the wild, its lifespan is 2 years.
The common shrew is a species threatened with extinction and is included in the Red Book of Moscow.
Peters' Eelephant Shrew
An amazing creature found in Africa, these adorable animals are about the size of a rat and have elongated snouts that help them forage for food like ants, beetles, and spiders. Elephant shrews form lifelong pairs and are a rare example of monogamous relationships among mammals. Unfortunately, their lifestyle and population are not fully understood, and it remains unclear if they are facing extinction. 🦔🌍💔
🦝 Young raccoons are bundles of energy and mischief
They jump, tumble, sniff everything in sight and can play for hours.
Raccoons have excellent memory and dexterity. At a young age, they can remember how to open complex locks or find hidden food stashes - and use it again months later!
The Royal Harpy Eagle 👑
The harpy eagle's talons are as large as a bear's, allowing it to grasp prey the size of a monkey or even a deer. 🦅🐵🦌
This majestic bird of prey is one of the largest and most powerful eagles in the world. 🌎 Its incredible strength and sharp talons make it a formidable hunter in its rainforest habitat. 🌴
The marabou stork looks very unusual! 😅
It has a bald head with a large, thick beak. Adult birds have a pouch-like sac hanging from their chest. This throat pouch is connected to the nostrils, so it can inflate and deflate while the marabou is resting.
Elephant trunk - an incredible and functional organ of these huge mammals. It's an extension of their upper lip and nose, serving multiple purposes.
Feeding: Elephants use their trunk for drinking, bathing, and even to pluck plants and leaves, which they then send to their mouth.
Breathing: The trunk also acts as a breathing tube, helping the elephant breathe while eating.
Touch: The trunk is very sensitive and can be used by the elephant to explore its surroundings. Elephants use it like a hand, lifting objects and manipulating them.
Communication: The trunk is used for communication with other elephants. With its help, an elephant can make sounds that other elephants can hear up to 10 kilometers away.
Thermoregulation: The elephant's trunk also helps them regulate body temperature. In the heat, an elephant can use it to cool down, and in the cold - to warm up.
Water storage: An elephant can collect water in its trunk and then pour it into its mouth, holding up to 7.5 liters of
🐾 Mother cheetahs are vital for the survival of their cubs, caring for them until they can defend themselves. After a pregnancy lasting about 90-95 days, they give birth to a litter of one to eight cubs, most often three to five.
👀 The cubs are born blind and helpless, and the mother fiercely protects them from predators like lions, hyenas, and leopards. During the first six weeks when the cubs are most vulnerable, the mother uses hiding strategies to keep them safe from danger.
Pelicans have a long beak, up to 47 cm, with a hook at the end. On the underside of the beak is a highly stretchy leather pouch used for catching fish. It can get clogged and lose its elasticity, so pelicans use their neck as a "shaker" and "stretcher".
The pelican stretches its pouch to fit more fish inside. This helps them catch and hold a larger quantity of fish in their expandable pouch. The neck muscles also help clean and maintain the pouch.
The waterbuck is a large, attractive antelope that can weigh up to 550 pounds. It is distinguished from other local antelopes by its thick coat.
Like the guinea pig, which is neither a pig nor marine, the waterbuck is not strongly associated with water. The subfamily of waterbucks is more closely related to other antelopes and buffalo than to goats and sheep.
Waterbucks are found throughout Africa south of the Sahara, absent only in the tropical forests of the Congo and Niger, the Horn of Africa, and the southern tip of the continent.
As with other members of the subfamily, waterbucks prefer river valleys covered in bushes and individual trees, although they can often be found in dry, bushy savannas or even in completely treeless steppes.
🐻🐾🐾 Beautiful video of a mother bear and her cub. The mother takes care of her cubs for at least two years, feeding and protecting them. When the cubs are two and a half years old, they usually separate from their mother. In areas with insufficient food, the cubs may stay with their mother longer.
Bear cubs rely on their mother's milk for the first few months of life. After that, they start eating solid food but continue to nurse for up to a year. The mother bear teaches her cubs essential survival skills like hunting and foraging. She also protects them from predators and other dangers.
The bond between a mother bear and her cubs is very strong. The cubs stay close to their mother and follow her lead. They learn by watching and imitating her actions. As the cubs grow older, they become more independent but still rely on their mother for guidance and protection.
When it's time for the cubs to separate from their mother, they may wander off on their own or stay in the same general a
🦉 Owls are the true champions among birds when it comes to expressive eyes!
Baby owlets have large, round eyes right from the start, giving them an incredibly cute and slightly surprised look, as if they are always ready to explore something new 😍
Their huge eyes allow them to see in the dark, making them excellent nighttime hunters. In fact, owls have some of the best night vision in the animal kingdom! 🌙🦉
Owls are also known for their ability to rotate their heads up to 270 degrees, allowing them to have a wide range of vision without moving their bodies. This unique adaptation helps them spot prey and navigate their environment with ease. 🔄🦉
You won't believe it, but this is a sparrow
The Capuchin bird is the only representative of the order Passeriformes with a completely bald face and an exotic mating song that resembles the Yakut national instrument khomus.
🐺 Little wolf cubs already have a loud howl!
Although they still look like fluffy balls, their voice is almost like that of adults. Wolf cubs begin to howl at 3-4 weeks old, training their vocal cords and learning to "speak" the wolf language.
Howling helps them stay together - it's like a "I'm here!" signal for the whole pack. Even the mother can recognize each of her babies by their sound.
A three-month-old alligator baby practices its "death roll".
Alligators and crocodiles use this signature move to tear flesh when prey is too large to swallow whole.
A gruesome sight, but through the lens of childhood, it even looks amusing, as if pretending.
Gouldian finches are very colorful birds, with head plumage that can vary greatly. In the wild, black-, red-, and yellow-headed varieties are found. The color of the head of young birds is gray, changing with the attainment of sexual maturity. These birds of the weaver finch family live in Australia.
Gouldian finches are adapted to extreme climatic conditions. They are very active at temperatures from 30 to 45 °C, taking long sunbaths at the same time. Other bird species, on the contrary, hide in the shade at these temperatures. 🐤
The corncrake is a shy and secretive bird with a very distinctive call that makes it easy to recognize. Its voice is loud, raspy, and medium-pitched, repeating a "krek-krek" sound.
Corncrakes feed on seeds and grasses, as well as insects, spiders, termites, and beetles. They are known for their unique mating calls, which can be heard from a distance.
Camels are known as the "ships of the desert" due to their incredible ability to navigate through vast sandy landscapes. These majestic creatures are not only adept at traversing dunes but also surprisingly skilled swimmers! Camels can swim up to 3 kilometers at a time, showcasing their adaptability to various environments. 🐫🏖️🏊♂️
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Black panthers prefer a solitary or paired lifestyle in their relationships with other animals. Each individual or pair has their own territory, the boundaries of which cannot be violated by their relatives.
When encountering a human, the animals do not show aggression if they are not hungry and do not need self-defense. However, if the panther is hungry, it can be dangerous, for example, to people: at night, it can sneak into a village and attack a sleeping person.
In the wild, black panthers have almost no enemies. They can fight for prey with another large predator but can always soberly assess their capabilities and step aside, yielding their trophy to another animal.
🦏 Rhinos may seem like intimidating giants, but sometimes they can be quite amusing.
Small branches or even logs are the perfect tools for a good scratch. Sometimes they can get so into it that they look like huge, but very contented babies! 😂
These gentle giants are not as fierce as they may appear. In fact, rhinos are quite playful and curious creatures. They often use their horns to explore their surroundings and communicate with other rhinos.
Despite their size, rhinos are actually quite agile and can run at speeds up to 30 miles per hour! So the next time you see a rhino, remember that beneath that tough exterior lies a heart of gold. 🦏💛
Ocelot
The Latin name "ocelot" sounds like "similar to a leopard," but the species name most likely originated from the Aztec language and translates to "field tiger."
However, ocelots are only conditionally related to true leopards or tigers. Leopards and tigers are members of the big cat family (roaring cats), while ocelots belong to the small cat subfamily.
Ocelots are small, American wild cats about twice the size of domestic cats. Their coat has distinctive markings in a variety of patterns. Each ocelot's coat is unique, with dark spots on orange fur and brown spots on white fur.
The fishing cat is a wild cat native to Southeast Asia. It is the largest member of the Eastern cat genus, nearly twice the size of a domestic cat. Males can reach up to 86 cm in body length and weigh up to 16 kg in larger individuals. In addition to fish, it eats almost anything it can catch, including rodents, snakes, frogs, and birds.
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The smokey or owl frogmouth is an amazing creature that resembles a branch of a dried tree.
Frogmouths don't build nests, instead they prefer to pile leaves and twigs, turn their head at an angle to look even more like a tree, and rely on their cryptic camouflage.
🦎 Gecko the size of a fingernail
Here it is, perched on the tip of a finger, Sphaerodactylus rosaurae - an adult gecko from the Bay Island of Honduras. Yes, it's not a baby. It's already fully grown, independent and sexually mature.
This is one of the smallest lizards in the world. Its body is less than 3 cm long, and it lives in fallen leaves, where it can easily hide even in a small fold of bark.
The snow leopard's amazing tail!
The snow leopard's tail acts as a rudder and balance aid - it helps maintain balance and adjust direction. This is especially important during jumps - while hunting, the snow leopard is capable of performing dizzying pirouettes.
Hummingbirds are amazing little birds. There are many species, but they all have small sizes and amazing beauty.
Hummingbirds feed on flowers. It was once believed that hummingbirds only eat flower nectar, but in reality, the main food, and for many the only food, consists of small insects that they extract from flowers and some from the surface of leaves. The birds never land on the ground and only feed while flying.
Hummingbirds are the only birds that can fly backwards or upside down.😍
The Lampoptera meges butterfly, also known as "dragon's tail" or "swallowtail," is a stunning insect found in Southeast Asia. Its poetic names come from its incredibly elongated wings, which gracefully flutter through the air with each beat. These butterflies are widely distributed across the region.
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🦔 Echidnas don't have nipples, so the baby echidna, called a puggle, laps up milk that seeps from the mother's milk glands onto her skin.
After some time, instead of abandoning the puggle, the mother digs a burrow for it to reside in until it reaches seven months old.
The mother returns every one to two weeks to nurse the baby. By seven months, the puggle has developed hard, sharp spines and is ready to live independently.
🦏 The rhino's horn is not just a decoration
The horn can grow up to 1.5 meters and looks truly impressive.
However, contrary to expectations, rhinos don't only use it for fighting. Sometimes the horn acts like a real sensory dagger - especially for curious individuals.
They can carefully prod unfamiliar objects with it to check: is it safe, is it not moving, is it not a threat?
🐐 Gulaabi Goats of Pakistan
These are a dairy goat breed with elongated ears and a curved nose. The animals are known for their high milk production and unique appearance. They are highly valued for their delicious and nutritious milk, as well as their tender meat. Gulaabi goats are rarely found on livestock farms in Russia, but are more common in the rural agriculture of Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Arab countries, and India.
🪵 Stick insects can shed and regenerate their limbs to escape from predators.
These fascinating insects have a unique defense mechanism. When a stick insect is attacked, it can voluntarily shed one or more of its legs to escape the predator's grasp. The detached limb continues to twitch and move, distracting the attacker while the insect makes its getaway.
Even more incredible, the stick insect can regenerate the lost limb over time. During its next few molts, a new leg will slowly grow back in place of the shed one. This process of limb regeneration is a remarkable example of the stick insect's ability to survive and adapt in the face of danger.
Stick insects are true masters of camouflage, with their slender, twig-like bodies allowing them to blend seamlessly into their surroundings. Their ability to shed and regenerate limbs adds another layer to their impressive survival skills.