Beaver

Natural Wild Life | Beaver | The beaver (genus Castor) is a primarily nocturnal, large, semi-aquatic rodent. Beavers are most well known for their distinctive home-building that can be seen in rivers and streams. The beavers dam is built from twigs, sticks, leaves and mud and are surprisingly strong. Here the beavers can catch their fish and swim in the water. Beavers are nocturnal animals existing in the forests of Europe and North America (the Canadian beaver is the most common beaver). Beavers use their large, flat shaped tails, to help with dam building and it also allows the beavers to swim at speeds of up to 30 knots per hour.

The beaver's significance is acknowledged in Canada by the fact that there is a Canadian Beaver on one of their coins. The beaver colonies create one or more dams in the beaver colonies' habitat to provide still, deep water to protect the beavers against predators. The beavers also use the deep water created using beaver dams and to float food and building materials along the river. In 1988 the North American beaver population was 60-400 million. Recent studies have estimated there are now around 6-12 million beavers found in the wild. The decline in beaver populations is due to the beavers being hunted for their fur and for the beaver's glands that are used as medicine and perfume. The beaver is also hunted because the beavers harvesting of trees and the beavers flooding of waterways may interfere with other human land uses.

Beavers are known for their danger signal which the beaver makes when the beaver is startled or frightened. A swimming beaver will rapidly dive while forcefully slapping the water with its broad tail. This means that the beaver creates a loud slapping noise, which can be heard over large distances above and below water. This beaver warning noise serves as a warning to beavers in the area. Once a beaver has made this danger signal, nearby beavers dive and may not come back up for some time. Beavers are slow on land, but the beavers are good swimmers that can stay under water for as long as 15 minutes at a time. In the winter the beaver does not hibernate but instead stores sticks and logs underwater that the beaver can then feed on through the cold winter.

Fly

Natural Wild Life | Fly | True flies are insects of the order Diptera. The fly is one of the most common and well-known insects in the world and the fly is found on every continent with the exception of the innermost polar regions of the Arctic Circle and Antarctica. There are more than 240,000 different species of fly worldwide but only around half of these have actually been scientifically documented, something the science world wants to look into further.

Fox

Natural Wild Life | Fox | Fox is a common name for many species of omnivorous mammals belonging to the Canidae family. The fox is a scavenger carnivours dog, generally found in urban city areas in the northern Hemisphere. The fox is a nocturnal mammal, meaning that the fox only goes out a night to hunt for prey. Wild foxes tend live for around 6-7 years, but some foxes have been known to be older than 13 in captivity. The wild fox hunts for the mouse and other small mammals and birds, but foxes appear to enjoy all species of insect.

Heron

Natural Wild Life | Heron | The heron is a large species of bird that inhabits wetlands and areas that are close to lakes, ponds and rivers. Some species of heron are also known as egrets and bitterns instead of being called herons. There are 64 different species of heron found inhabiting the wetlands around the world. Herons are commonly found in Europe and North America along with the more temperate regions of Africa, Asia and Australia. Herons are commonly confused with the stalk which is another large species of bird, however the fact that herons fly with their necks in rather than outstretched is on the main differences between herons and stalks.

Cow

Natural Wild Life | Cow | Cows are raised in many different countries around the world, mainly for the cows natural resources such as milk, meat and leather. In India the cow is seen as a sacred animal. There are thought to be nearly 1.5 million cows worldwide, most of the cows are sadly kept by farmers but there is sure to be the odd rouge escaped wild cows somewhere!

Caterpillar

Natural Wild Life | Caterpillar | The caterpillar is the larvae (the baby) of both a butterfly and a moth. After around 2-3 weeks, the caterpillar builds itself into a cocoon where it remains a pupa for a further 2 weeks. The caterpillar then emerges having grown wings. The moth caterpillar is well known for being a pest particularly in the fabric industry. One species of caterpillar has destroyed reams of silk in the far east, known in China as a silk worm.

Babirusa

Natural Wild Life | Babirusa | The babirusas are a genus. The Babirusa (Babyrousa babyrussa) is a very special member of the pig family. Up until now the relationship between the Babirusa and the other pig species hasn't been resolved completely. There are pieces of research, which suggest the conclusion, that it is closely related to Hippopotamuses, close relatives of pigs themselves. The babirusa is a very strange looking member of the pig family. They are only distantly related to other pigs, and have been given their own subfamily, the Babirousinae. There are three subspecies of the Babirusa corresponding to the areas where they are found; the Sulawesi, Togian, and Moluccan babirusa. These subspecies have different hair covering, hair color, and tusk and body sizes. Fossil studies seem to show that the babirusa may be more closely related to hippopotamuses than pigs.

Zebu

 

Natural Wild Life | Zebu | Zebu (Bos primigenius indicus or Bos indicus), sometimes known as humped cattle. The zebu is a species of cattle that is native to the jungles of South Asia and the Zebu is the only cattle species that can easily adapt to life in the hot tropics. The zebu is also known as the humped cattle as the zebu has a very distinctive hump on its upper back, located behind the head and neck of the zebu. Today the zebu can also be found in Africa, as the zebu was transported there from Asia many years ago. There are thought to be around 75 different species of zebu, with roughly half the zebu species found in Africa and the other half of the zebu species found in South Asia. The zebu has also been taken to South America from Africa, where zebu populations are continuously growing.

Vulture

 

Natural Wild Life | Vulture | Vulture is the name given to two groups of convergently evolved scavenging birds. The vulture is a large, carnivorous bird that is most well known for its scavenging nature. The vulture is one of the few types of bird that is found distributed so widely around the world, as vultures are found on every continent excluding the Antarctic and Australia and the islands that surround it. Different species of vultures of firstly classified into two groups, the old world vultures and the new world vultures. There are thought to be nearly 30 different species of vulture that are found worldwide.

Tuatara

Natural Wild Life | Tuatara | The tuatara is a reptile endemic to New Zealand which, though it resembles most lizards. The tuatara is a small to medium sized reptile, that is found only on a few small islands surrounding New Zealand. Although the tuatara was once found inhabiting mainland New Zealand in large numbers, today the tuatara is nearly extinct from the mainland. Despite the lizard-like appearance of the tuatara, the tuatara is actually only a very distant relative of the lizard and the snake. The tuatara is believed to have broken off from lizards and snakes more than 200 million years ago.

Wallaby

Natural Wild Life | Wallaby | A wallaby is any of about thirty species of macropod (Family Macropodidae). It is an informal designation generally used for any macropod that is smaller than a kangaroo or wallaroo that has not been given some other name. The wallaby is a small to medium sized marsupial found on the Australian continent and its surrounding islands. Today there are a number of wild wallaby populations inhabiting other areas around the world where the wallaby has been introduced by humans. The wallaby is most closely related to Australia's largest marsupial, the kangaroo. The wallaby is generally smaller than a kangaroo although some wallaby individuals have been known to reach 6ft tall. 

Yak

Natural Wild Life | Yak | The yak is a herd animal found in the mountainous regions of central Asia. The yak, Bos grunniens or Bos mutus, is a long-haired bovine found throughout the Himalayan region of south Central Asia, the Tibetan Plateau and as far north as Mongolia and Russia. In addition to a large domestic population, there is a small, vulnerable wild yak population. In the 1990s, a concerted effort was undertaken to help save the wild yak population.

Axolotl

Natural Wild Life | Axolotl | The axolotl is a medium-sized amphibian that is only found in one complex of lakes that are close to Mexico City. The axolotl, Ambystoma mexicanum, is a neotenic salamander, closely related to the Tiger Salamander. Larvae of this species fail to undergo metamorphosis, so the adults remain aquatic and gilled. It is also called ajolote (which is also a common name for different types of salamander). The species originates from numerous lakes, such as Lake Xochimilco underlying Mexico City. Axolotls are used extensively in scientific research due to their ability to regenerate limbs.