Monday 15 September 2014

The weirdest animals of the world


Australia

Many weird animals live in Australia. This may be because Australia and Antarctica broke away from all other land masses long before other continents detached from their neighbours, but it may have something to do with the dinosaurs wiping out large mammals on other continents. For more information see Wytse's February article.

Marsupials live in Australia, some large islands in Oceania, New Zealand, New Guinea, and Indonesia. There is also a stand of them in North America.

Marsupials make up the bulk of Australian fauna. There is the kangaroo, an animal Australia is famous for. By hopping everywhere, kangaroos are three times as efficient as people. There are many types of kangaroos, including the eastern and western gray and the red kangaroo. There are also many close relatives of the kangaroo, including the euro, padimellon, wallaroo, and wallaby.
One of the benefits of a pouch in all these animals is that young can be born at a very early stage of growth, giving kangaroos, wallabies, and their relatives a rather short gestation period.

Koalas are some of the only animals capable of eating the poisonous eucalyptus
leaves. Digesting the leaves, however, robs them of all energy, so koalas spend up to 160 hours a week dozing off in a tree. The most active marsupials are the predators. Unfortunately, the largest went extinct in 1936 from hunting, the second largest is dying out from a contagious cancer, and the third largest is critically endangered from habitat loss! Bringing back all these animals, even the Thylacine, is or will be possible, but only if we really try.

Australia has many types of bird -- Cockatoos, lorikeets, turkeys, the largest population of pelicans. Even penguins live in Australia. The weirdest bird is the Lyrebird. This bird can mimic anything, from human voices to chainsaws to other birds. It also has six unique calls. 

The Americas

The Americas have been isolated for over 90 million years. This let the animals there get more and more different before a land bridge was formed between Alaska and Siberia.
The first animals to cross the bridge did not come from Siberia, but from America. Bears had been evolving in the continent for years. Over that time, some bears had migrated onto the ice caps. These bears adapted to have white fur, so their prey could not easily see them in the ice. The bears also grew very large, so they could produce enough body heat. The polar bear had evolved. Polar bears, adapted to the cold, could easily cross the icy land bridge. They were followed by grizzly bears, which evolved into sun bears later on.

The next animals to cross the bridge were cats. Cats evolved in Siberia and dispersed south since then. Some cats, like bobcats, with their long hair and short tails, stayed in Siberia. When the land bridge formed, bobcats crossed to the other side. Now there are more bobcats in North America then there are in Russia. Along with bobcats came tundra-grazing caribou and the people following them. Later came beavers and otters, and, from America, songbirds.

In America, the birds did not evolve to become amazingly beautiful, but some became very intelligent, like the raven. Ravens have been known to use taps. The owl also evolved in America. Owls are intelligent, too.
One bird, the Arctic tern, has the longest migration in the world. It spends its time in Alaska when it is summer there. As it gets colder, the Arctic tern flies south over the Pacific to Antarctica for the summer there. In this way, the Arctic tern sees the most daylight of any animal.

Eurasia

The most biodiversity in Eurasia lies in India and Indonesia. Sadly, this area is also very crowded. One of the most endangered animals on Earth lives in the rainforest  regions of Asia -- The tiger. Tigers are the largest big cats as well as the deadliest, but tigers do not kill a fraction as many people as people kill tigers.  Tigers are not really weird, but they're different from other big cats in many ways.

Ever since agriculture became widespread, there were barely any real forests in northern Europe. However, a few pockets of land still exist. In a few of the wetlands, otters swim. Otters are not very weird either, but unlike many other animals, they are not bothered by human habitation.

The reason why there are not any truly weird animals in Eurasia is, white people have had encounters with them for millennium. Things are only weird if they are new.

Africa

Africa has a range of unique animals. Giraffes use their long necks and feet to reach high branches, as well as to be invincible against predators. Elephants are the largest animals on land, as well as the most dangerous. Zebras as well as other grazing animals travel in herds in the greatest migrations. Hippos are dangerous, very large and formidable.

Africa also has powerful predators. Of these, lions are the most charismatic and iconic. Hyenas are not just scavengers. They hunt during the night.

Cheetahs are more related to domestic cats then leopards. However, this does not stop them behaving like other big cats. Cheetahs are the fastest animal in the world, but only for half a minute. Cheetahs quickly tire. A person would easily be able to beat them in a race if the race was more than five kilometers long.

Interestingly enough, true big cats only exist in 2 continents, Asia and Africa. Africa has the largest big cat population in the world.

The Islands 


That's all the continents! Actually, there is more. Many islands were never connected to a continent, so weird animals could evolve there easily. The problem is, many islands are very new. Only grass and seagulls would find the island before it sinks into the sea.

There are a few old islands, though. The Galapagos Islands are very old, and much life has found a foothold there.

Iguanas live in the Galapagos islands. Marine Iguanas cling onto rocks warmed from the sun in the day, as well as just sitting there being battered by waves and diveing for algae. During the night they lie in rocks.

The Galapagos turtle can live up to 160 years and is very large. The Galapagos turtle was not evolved to look beautiful. Its legs look like big, scaly sacks of sand and it may have one or two dents in its shell. But the Galapagos turtle is a key species. If it disappears, so may many other plants and animals in Galapagos.
 
The Ocean


Water covers most of the Earth. In the water, all sorts of fish swim. The water is where life came from. The water is where most life is. The water is where the last life will die.

Around the edges of the ocean, fish are normal. It is thought that life started in rock pools, and it is true that in rock pools there is much ancient life. Life forms older than trilobites search the bottom. Hundreds of types of seaweed, algae, and mosses grow in the edges. Oysters and limpets are five hundred million years old.

This is not just it. Farther out, on the continental shelf, there are atolls with coral reefs. Coral and sponges were the first multi-celled life. All sorts of fish, sea slugs and sea cucumbers, shells, shellfish, cuttlefish, sharks, and many other types of life inhabit coral reefs and make them living rainbows full of the essence of life.

The continental shelf slopes off into the 2-mile deep waters of the Abyssal plain. Here, most animals never see the sun. The Abyssal plain has pressure that could crumple you like a paper cup. It is also very cold. Once, people thought it was as barren as a desert. However, life has been found. The Anglerfish lures fish by light into their mouths. The fish they lure have glowing eyes.

The trenches are the ultimate Abyss. No fish lives here, but all sorts of incredibly strange life abounds here. Much of this life is not animal, or plant, or any other type of life form well known of.

The weirdest animal in the world


Long ago, there were two types of mammal.  There were animals that resembled mice, and the egg-laying Thecodont. Then the dinosaurs evolved, keeping the mouse population small and wiping out Thecodonts. At least, in six continents. Three egg-laying mammals still exist. They are the long-beaked Echidna, the short-beaked Echidna, and the Platypus.


Platypuses ought to be the weirdest animals in the world. The platypus has the tail of a beaver and the bill of a duck. It lays eggs like a reptile and has poison like a snake. The platypus can sense electric signals like no other tetrapod.
When Europeans first brought specimens back to their home, people thought the Platypus was a hoax.


The weirdest thing about the Platypus is: The animal is very common, unlike certain weird animals who live in places which don't have room for weird animals. Australia accepts the weird, and only the weird.


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