Hawaiin Monk Seals

February 22, 2009 · Filed under Mammals, Seals

It’s been a long time since I’ve written on my blog. I’ve got a great animal to add though!

Hawaiin monk seals are very lucky. They get to live in Hawaii. This means lying on the beach and hanging out in the sun. Only when seals lay in the sun, it’s not suntanning, it’s called basking.

The average monk seal is 7.5 feet long (2.3m) and they can weigh between 500 and 600 lbs.

There are three types of monk seals. Only two still exist. The Mediterranean and Hawaiin monk seals are still alive, but unfortunately the Caribbean monk seal has been extinct since the 1970′s. Hawaiin monk seals live near coral reefs which provide all kinds of different food such as eels, spiny lobster, octopus and fish.

Their Hawaiin name is llio holo lka upua which means ‘dog that runs in rough water’. My grandparents were recently in Hawaii, and they got some awesome pictures of them. They saw them basking on the beach they were swimming on. How cool!

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African Elephants

July 30, 2008 · Filed under Elephant, Herbivores, Mammals · Tagged

African Elephants are enormous creatures!

They are threatened but not endangered. Their tusks are very valuable to people who like to collect ivory. Piano keys, pool balls and collectable ornaments used to be made out of ivory, but as people realized that elephants had to die for ivory to be collected, it became illegal. Some people still like to collect ivory though, even though it’s illegal.

These animals can smell a long ways away. Both the female and the male can be very dangerous, especially when it is mating season or calving season. (Baby elephants are called calves)

Elephants live all over Africa. They eats roots, grasses, leaves, fruit and bark. They can eat a lot of food in one day, and a lot comes out the other end too.

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Black Rhinos

July 30, 2008 · Filed under Herbivores, Mammals, Rhinos · Tagged

Black rhinos are very heavy. They are very protective of their families. They live in part of Southern Africa. They live on dry grasslands where they eat many types of grasses and ground-level plants.

Black rhinos are different from white rhinos. How? Their lips are different. White rhinos are actually named after a south african word that means wide, not white, and it is talking about their wide lip. A black rhino’s lip is pointier.

Their horns on their nose is made of keratin, which is a protein also found in human hair and fingernails. Very weird right? Black rhinos have two horns, and the largest one ever recorded was five feet long. That’s as long as my brother is tall! That’s amazing!

There are three types of rhinos and they are all endangered. This includes: black rhinos, white rhinos and Indian rhinos.

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Sperm Whales

May 2, 2008 · Filed under Uncategorized

Sperm whales are extreme! They are 49 – 59 feet long which is vey close in size to a bus. Wow! They have massive heads, and their brains are the largest of any creature known to have lived on earth. Sperm Whales weigh between 35 – 45 TONS. They eat lots of fish and squid everyday, almost one ton! When they are diving for squid and fish, they can go as deep as 3280 feet under the water. On these dives, they need to hold their breath for up to 90 minutes. When they fight with the giant squid, they can get a lot of wounds from them and have been spotted with suction cup wounds. Sperm Whales live in families called Pods in the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Indian Ocean.

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Beluga Whales

May 2, 2008 · Filed under Uncategorized

Beluga Whales are also called white whales. They live in in groups called Pods in the Arctic Ocean’s coastal waters and are also found in the subartics water. They are treatened. Some times when they are migrating, they become trapped under the freezing ice and die. They are also prey for Polar Bears, Killer Whales the Artic people and commercial fisheries.

Beluga Whales are smaller than a bus but bigger than a person and can weigh between 2000 and 3000 lbs. They eat worms, fish, and crustaceans. When they are born, they are grey or even brown in color. Their average lifetime in the wild is 35 to 50 years. Beluga whales are very social animals and communicate to each other with a language of clicks, whistles, and clangs.

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Thai Elephants

April 16, 2008 · Filed under Mammals · Tagged

My friend Amanda let me know about some elephants in Thailand that are being helped in a special camp. A nice lady takes care of elephants that have been abused or are really old. People can even go and volunteer there to help take care of them. I would like to do that!

Web site with pictures.

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The Green Sea Turtle

April 15, 2008 · Filed under Green Sea Turtles · Tagged ,

I think that Green Sea Turtle’s are very unique! They can grow up to five feet long and wiegh up to 700 lbs! That is really enormous since they mostly eat seagrasses and algae! They can also live for more than 80 years. Green Sea Turtles are the only kind of turtles that cannot pull their heads back into their shells. That is called non retractable. The Green Sea Turtle got its name because of its greenish skin. When people make soup out of it, their soup is also green because of the fat.

Green Sea Turtles live in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans. They are endangered. Some of the turtles are being caught in fishermens nets. They also die because of pollution and garbage in the water. (Especially plastic bags which look like jellyfish.) When the eggs hatch, it is very hard for the baby turtles to make it to the water because many crabs and birds eat them on the beach.

There are ways that we can help the Green Sea Turtle:

  • It is important to always put your garbage where it belongs so that it doesn’t end up in the ocean.
  • If you’re in a restaurant that serves them on the menu as a delicacy, don’t order them
  • Fishermen need to be careful where they’re putting their nets, and they shouldn’t use trawling nets.

Find out more.

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The Strange Boto

April 5, 2008 · Filed under Mammals · Tagged ,

 

Boto are strange animals. They live in the Amazon River in South America. Boto are freshwater dolphins. They are shaped different than bottlenosed dolphins. These dolphins have small eyes and the water that they swim in is very dirty, but that is OK because they use a sense called echolocation to catch their prey and see what is in front of them.

 There are two zoos in the world with botos, one is in Venezuela and the other is in Germany. Botos are not endangered but are vulnerable. This means that there are still many left but they could be in danger from pollution, damming of their rivers and fishermen who kill them for eating their fish or harming their nets.

 

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Amazing Okapis

April 2, 2008 · Filed under Herbivores, Mammals, Okapi

   

Okapi are very shy animals. They live in the Congo in Africa. No one found out that they were alive on Earth until 1901. People call them living fossils. They eat plants so you know that means they are herbivores. They are related to giraffes. And the stripes on their legs kind of makes them look like zebras from a distance. They are the only animal that can stick their tongue out and clean their ear! Gross!

Okapi are threatened (not endangered) because of habitat loss and poaching.

www.bristolzoo.org has some great information about these shy, beautiful creatures.

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Bengal Tigers

March 31, 2008 · Filed under Mammals, Tigers

   

Bengal tigers are strong animals.  They are the largest cat in the cat family.  They live in parts of India, Malaysia, China, Kazakhstan, Thailand and areas outside Thailand and more.  They are one of the endangered cat species in the world.  They are 6-ft long, now that is long!  Their averarage life time is 8 to 10 yrs long in the wild.  There are ways to help these beautiful animals.

  • by recycling paper and bottle
  • learning more about these animals
  • support the poeple that destroy their habitat by finding new jobs that does\not hurt the environment 

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