My Science School

Peacocks can fly, despite their long trains (tail feathers) which make up 60% of their body. The average peacock spends only 2% of its time in flight. Flight serves primarily as a defence mechanism; peacocks launch themselves vertically into the air to escape into the canopies of trees to evade predators and to nest safely during the evenings. If a predator grabs the train, the long feathers pull out easily, so that the peacock can fly away. This national bird of India is protected under the Wildlife Protection Act 1972.

When you look at the long tail flowing behind a flying peacock, you might be perplexed as to how they manage to lift themselves off the ground. Technically, their actual tail has only about 20 feathers. However the “train” that is made up of the elongated feathers that drape over the tail can have more than 200 feathers and is about 5-6 feet long!

Surely this mass of 200 extra long feathers trailing behind them must hinder their flight ability. However, scientists believe it actually has no significant effects. In a study carried out by Dr. Askew of the University of Leads, peacock tails were clipped to confirm its effect on their flight.

Surprisingly, peacocks with clipped tails still struggled to take off from the ground, and their flight was similar to when they had full tails. This has lead researchers to believe that the gigantic plumage has little effect on a peacocks ability to fly.

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A fifth of reptile species is threatened with extinction, with those living in forest habitats (27%) in greater danger than those inhabiting arid areas (14%).

Out of 10,196 reptile species examined, around 2,000 species are critically endangered, endangered or vulnerable to extinction as defined by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Australia's saltwater crocodile, the world's largest reptile, is listed in the category 'least concern', but its cousin, India's gharial, is 'critically endangered'. Indonesia's Komodo dragon, the world's largest lizard, is 'endangered'; the King Cobra, the world's longest venomous snake; the leatherback, the largest sea turtle, and the Galapagos marine iguana, are all 'vulnerable'; and the various Galapagos tortoise species range from vulnerable to extinct.

Many reptiles are being pushed towards extinction by deforestation for agriculture, logging and development, urban encroachment and hunting by people, while climate change is a looming threat.

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The International Union for Conservation of Nature says these wildlife species found in India are facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild.

FEW LEFT: The Gundia frog (Indirana gundia) is a resident of a patch of forest in the Western Ghats. As forests are cut down to make way for construction, this frog is slowly losing its home.

DOWNWARD SPIRAL: The population of red-headed vultures has decreased by over 90% in just 10 years. Most of the birds died after feeding on the carcasses of livestock treated with diclofenac, a non-steroid painkiller used by farmers and veterinarians.

POSITIVE NOTE: The gharial (Gavialis gangeticus) was once found across Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal and Pakistan. It currently survives in several severely fragmented populations in India and Nepal. Conservation programmes in India are slowly improving numbers.

DEEP TROUBLE: The Indian swellshark (Cephaloscyllium silasi) is found in the western Indian Ocean. Their numbers are falling due to overfishing.

LOST RODENT: Sightings of the Large Rock Rat, also known as the Elvira Rat, are so rare that there are few photographs of them. This is an illustration of the species (Cremnomys elvira) by the Zoological Survey of India.

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Cheetahs to prowl India for the first time in 70 years! The country will be home to the world's fastest land animal for the first time since 1952, when the indigenous population was declared extinct.

Eight cheetahs are set to arrive in August from Namibia, home to one of the world's largest populations of the wild cat. The first arrivals will make their home in the State of Madhya Pradesh at Kuno-Palpur National Park, selected for its cheetah-friendly terrain.

Separately, India is also expected to get 12 cheetahs from South Africa, for which a draft agreement has already been signed, with a final one expected soon, officials familiar with the matter said.

 The Asiatic cheetah could once be found in areas stretching from the Arabian Peninsula to Afghanistan. It is now known only to survive in Iran, where in 2022 only 12 were reportedly still alive.

 Only about 7,000 cheetahs remain in the wild globally, with most of them in African savannahs. The animal is classified as a vulnerable species under the International Union for Conservation of Nature's red list of threatened species. The arrival of the cheetahs is expected to coincide with India's 75th Independence Day celebrations on August 15.

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Brown bears! They are found in Europe, Asia and North America - where they are called grizzlies. Mostly solitary animals, brown bears are good hunters, able to run at speeds of up to 48 km per hour; they also swim well.

One way to identify a brown bear is by the hump at the top of its shoulder. The hump is made of muscle and helps the bear dig a den. No other extant species of bear has this hump. Adult bears have short tails and sharp teeth with curved lower canines. Their skulls are heavy and concave.

Brown bears claws are large, curved, and blunt. Their claws are straighter and longer than those of black bears. Unlike the black bear, which readily climbs trees, the brown bear climbs less frequently due to its weight and claw structure.

You might guess from their name that brown bears are brown. However, these bears can be brown, red, tan, cream, bicolored, or nearly black. Sometimes the tips of their fur are colored. Fur length varies according to the season. In the summer, their fur is shorter. In the winter, some brown bears' fur can reach 4 to 5 inches in length.

Brown bear size is highly variable, depending both on subspecies and food availability. Males are about 30% larger than females. An average-sized bear might range from 5 to 8 feet in length and weigh 700 pounds, however, much smaller and much larger specimens occur. On average, polar bears are larger than brown bears, but a large grizzly and a polar bear are comparable.

Habitat and Distribution

The brown bear's range includes northern North America and Eurasia, including the United States, Canada, Russia, China, Central Asia, Scandinavia, Romania, Caucasus, and Anatolia. At one time, it was also found throughout Europe, in northern Africa, and as far south as Mexico in North America.

Diet

Although brown bears have a reputation as fierce carnivores, they actually obtain as much as 90% of their calories from vegetation. Bears are omnivorous and naturally curious about eating nearly any creature. Their preferred food is anything abundant and easy to obtain, which varies according to the season. Their diet includes grass, berries, roots, carrion, meat, fish, insects, nuts, flowers, fungi, moss, and even pine cones.

Bears that live near people may prey on pets and livestock and scavenge for human food. Brown bears eat up to 90 pounds of food per day in autumn and weigh twice as much as when they emerge from their dens in the spring.

Adult brown bears face few predators. Depending where they live, they may be attacked by tigers or other bears. Brown bears dominate gray wolves, cougars, black bears, and even polar bears. Large herbivores rarely threaten the bears, but may fatally wound one in self-defense or protecting calves.

Behavior

Most adult brown bears are crepuscular, with peak activity in the early morning and evening. Young bears may be active during the day, while bears living near humans tend to be nocturnal.

Adult bears tend to be solitary, except for females with cubs or gatherings at fishing spots. While a bear may roam over a huge range, it tends not to be territorial.

Bears double their weight from the spring going into winter. Each bear selects a protected spot as a den for the winter months. Sometimes bears will dig out a den, but they will use a cave, hollow log, or tree roots. While brown bears become lethargic in the winter, they do not truly hibernate and can be easily woken if disturbed.

Reproduction and Offspring

Female bears become sexually mature between 4 and 8 years of age and come into heat once every three or four years. Males typically begin mating a year older than females, when they are large enough to compete with other males. Both males and females take multiple mates during the mating season, which runs from mid-May to June. Fertilized eggs remain in the female's uterus for six months, implanting in her uterus while she is dormant during the winter.

Cubs are born eight weeks after implantation, while the female is sleeping. The average litter is 1 to 3 cubs, although as many as 6 cubs may be born. Cubs nurse on their mother's milk until she emerges from her den in spring. They remain with her for about two and a half years. Males do not aid in rearing. They will engage in infanticide of another bear's cubs, presumably to bring females into heat. Females often successfully defend cubs from males, but may be killed in the conflict. In the wild, the average brown bear life expectancy is around 25 years.

Credit : Thoughtco.com 

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How did your journey start?

When we were hit by the pandemic and under lockdown, my dad started working from home, and I could hear him speak and attend meetings over the phone every day. One day, I heard him in need of HR services for his company. It made me want to help not only him but everyone in such a need.

Is that what your Company V-Thred Tech does?

I founded V-Thred Tech in 2020, and it is a marketplace for HR services. Based on the requirements of the companies that register, we look for and offer the companies seven best matches to choose from. We also let them turn down the offers if they don't require them. Around 40 companies register themselves every month. which has been a great progress.

Tell us about your new GIGG Club and what it aims for.

It is fundamentally a learn-and-earn community. Individuals register on the website,-and post details about their achievements. This helps them connect with those who are in need of a particular specialist.

What were the challenges you faced and how did you overcome them?

I did face a lot of challenges as a 16-year-old girl managing school work and all my clubs; it was not easy for me. But at the end of the day, what is important is being confident and believing in ourselves. The best way to overcome our problems is to give it time and be mentally peaceful. Over a period of time, say 20 years from now, these may not even be 1% of the problem compared to the other issues we may face. We sometimes feel it is the end of everything when we have too many problems to face at once. The best way to come out of it is to breathe and calm our mind to help us think better to resolve the situation.

Should the youth consider entrepreneurship as a career or is it only for the experienced ones?

Everyone is bom a leader, but we just need to sense that leadership in us to take things forward to create success. Entrepreneurship is for everybody, and anybody can do it. Our knowledge of entrepreneurship is also impacted by who our mentor is.

Entrepreneurship is a give-and-take process, where we learn, put theories into practice, and gain knowledge and experience from it. A successful entrepreneur is made by that mentor who guides them in each and every step of their journey. to make the best decisions and let them know about their mistakes to get them corrected.

What are your hobbies?

In my free time, I mostly swim, listen to music or may talk to my friends. Usually when I get exhausted, I most likely go for a swim to relax and calm myself.

What is the one thing you would like to change in society?

I would like to change how society thinks due to which we are unable to talk about taboo topics, especially in India. We are afraid to open up about our issues to anyone, which affects our mental health a lot. People are unable to accept the fact that a person with stress would like to overcome it with the help of a counsellor. The problem of mental health and the taboo around it is the one thing I want to change in India.

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When a baby bear is born, it’s called a cub. Cubs are born to sows, their adult mothers, and boars, their adult fathers. A group of baby bear cubs it’s called a litter, but a group of adult bears is called a sleuth or sloth.

Although adult bears can be very large, cubs are tiny when they are born. A huge polar bear, weighing more than 500 kg, will give birth to cubs weighing about one kilogram - far smaller even than human babies! Baby pandas weigh as little as 85 g. Bear cubs do, however, gain weight and grow very rapidly.

 Baby Black Bears are Not Always Black. Some black bear cubs are born with fur that doesn’t exactly match their name. Did you know a black bear’s fur can range from light blonde to blue-gray? 

The Kermode, a subspecies of black bear, is also known as the split bear due to its white fur, despite being a black bear. The spirit bear is located in Alaska and is nicknamed the spirit bear because it has ghostly white fur. Bear cubs are on average one pound at birth and can easily fit in the palm of your hand. By the time they’re 6 months old, they weigh about 6 pounds. 

As adults, though, they are extremely large. An adult male black bear weighs an average of 400 pounds and an adult female weighs around 200 pounds. In comparison to how large they get to be, bear cubs are tiny!

What do baby bears eat?

Bears are mammals, therefore their young nurses from their mother. While the mother bear is napping away in hibernation, her cubs will nurse until content. Once they’ve made their way out of the den, the cubs will begin weaning from their mom’s milk in the summer and will start tasting their mom’s food once they leave the den. Bears like to eat fish, leaves, bugs, fruit, berries, and much more! 

Where do baby bears live?

Cubs are born in dens that their mothers choose for birth and hibernation. They’re born between November and February and stay in the den until Springtime when they will all come out together to see the world for the first time. Once out of the birthing den, the family will move on to find shelter that would better suit their growing family.

Credit : A-Z Animals 

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For years experts argued about whether the giant panda should be grouped with bears, or raccoons, or classed in a family of its own. Scientific study now suggests that the panda is definitely a member of the bear family. The giant panda is a rare animal that is found only in the mountainous forests of Central China, where it feeds on a certain kind of bamboo tree. As the bamboo is not very nutritious, the panda spends 10-12 hours a day eating.

If we go by common names, there are two types of pandas: the giant panda and the red panda. However, only of them is considered a bear species.

There has been a long drawn debate among scientists as to whether the giant panda is a bear, a raccoon, or has a separate family of its own. Why? The giant pandas and red pandas have characteristics common with both a bear and a raccoon. However, with evidence from recent genetic studies indicating that the giant panda is more closely related to a bear, it is categorized in the bear family Ursidae.

Why are they called pandas?

The giant panda is a bear of the bear family Ursidae. Even though it shares a common name with the red panda, the latter is not a bear and belongs to a distinct family of its own called Ailuridae.

The term panda is believed to have its roots in the Nepalese word 'nigalya ponya', which translates to 'bamboo eater' in English. Thus, the name panda essentially refers to the bamboo-based diet of both giant and red pandas even though the two animals are classified separately. In fact, the red panda was described way before the giant panda, and the latter was named 'panda' due to the similarities the two species share, like feeding on bamboo shoots. The giant panda is also known as the bamboo bear, panda bear, or in Chinese as 'Daxiongmao,' which means 'the large bear cat.'

Credit : kidadl.com

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Bears are found all over the world except in Antarctica and Australia. Generally speaking, all bears have a large body, a short tail, small, rounded ears, a long, pointed snout, stocky legs with large paws and very sharp claws. Bears are hunters and eat meat, but they also eat leaves, fruits and nuts, which is why they are considered omnivores.

With some minor exceptions, all eight bear species have roughly the same appearance: large torsos, stocky legs, narrow snouts, long hair, and short tails. With their plantigrade postures—walking upright on two feet—bears walk flat-footed on the ground like humans but unlike most other mammals.

Bears range in color with species: Black, brown and Andean bears are typically red-brown to black; polar bears are generally white to yellow; Asiatic bears are black to brown with a white patch and sun bears are brown with a yellow crescent on their chest. They range in size from the sun bear (47 inches tall and weighing 37 pounds) to the polar bear, (nearly 10 feet tall and weighing 1,500 pounds). 

Most bears are omnivorous, feasting opportunistically on animals, fruits, and vegetables, with two important outliers: The polar bear is almost exclusively carnivorous, preying on seals and walruses, and the panda bear subsists entirely on bamboo shoots. Oddly enough, though, pandas' digestive systems are relatively well adapted to eating meat.

Because the vast majority of bears live in high northern latitudes, they need a way to survive the winter months when food is dangerously scarce. Evolution's solution is hibernation: Bears go into a deep sleep, lasting for months, during which their heart rates and metabolic processes slow drastically. Being in hibernation isn't like being in a coma. If sufficiently roused, a bear can wake up in the middle of its hibernation, and females have even been known to give birth in the deep of winter. Fossil evidence also supports cave lions preying on hibernating cave bears during the last Ice Age, though some of these bears woke up and killed the unwelcome intruders.

Bears may be the most antisocial mammals on the face of the earth. Full-grown bears are almost entirely solitary. This is good news for campers who accidentally encounter lone grizzlies in the wild, but quite unusual when compared with other carnivorous and omnivorous mammals, ranging from wolves to pigs, that tend to congregate in at least small groups.

Depending on species, a bear's basic communication needs can be expressed with about seven or eight different "words"—huffs, chomps, groans, roars, woofs, growls, hums, or barks. The most dangerous sounds for humans are roars and growls, which denote a frightened or agitated bear defending its territory.

Huffs are generally produced during mating and courtship rituals; hums—a bit like the purrs of cats, but much louder—are deployed by cubs to demand attention from their mothers, and moans express anxiety or a sense of danger. Giant pandas have a slightly different vocabulary than their ursine brethren: In addition to the sounds described above, they can also chirp, honk, and bleat.

Considering that early humans used to worship bears as gods, our relationship with ursines hasn't exactly been stellar over the last few hundred years. Bears are especially susceptible to habitat destruction, are often hunted for sport, and tend to become the scapegoats whenever campers are attacked in the wild or garbage cans are overturned in suburbs.

Today, the largest threats to bears are deforestation and human encroachment, and, for polar bears, climate change which is reducing the environment in which they live. On the whole, black and brown bears are holding their own, even though adverse interactions with humans have increased as their habitats become more constricted.

Credit : Thoughtco.com 

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The jaguar - the third largest of the big cats, after the tiger and lion. They look quite like leopards but have bulkier bodies and the rosettes on their coats are larger, with a spot at the centre. Unlike most cats, jaguars do not avoid water and will catch fish, turtles and caimans, as well as deer, capybara and other land animals.

The name “jaguar” is a corruption of the Brazilian Tupi-Guarani people’s name for this big cat. In their language, “yaguara” means “beast”. The largest cat in the Americas, the jaguar is the third largest feline in the world, after the tiger and lion.

The jaguar is an essentially solitary animal. It hunts alone, wandering through the forest across its territory and ambushing prey opportunistically. The bite of the jaguar is unusually powerful even among large felines, and it is capable of perforating the hides of large reptiles and the shells of turtles. Unusually among big cats, it often attacks the head of its prey directly, relying upon its powerful jaws to penetrate the skull and bite into the brain.

Jaguars are adept swimmers and will readily take to the water in pursuit of their prey. They have been spotted crossing the Tambopata River, and will occasionally take down small caiman.

In the wild, jaguars tend to live for between 11 and 15 years, and can live up for to 25 years in captivity. Jaguars are almost always sighted alone. As solitary hunters, they only come together to breed. When seeking a mate, jaguars tend to roam over vast areas of forest, far beyond their normal hunting range. It is believed that jaguars will breed throughout the year, in wet season or dry. Receptive females mark their territory, in addition to becoming increasingly vocal, when seeking a mate. After breeding, the male and female separate, leaving the female to raise her cubs alone. In common with the tiger, female jaguars will not tolerate the presence of any male after the birth of their cubs, given the high risk of infant cannibalism prevalent among these two species.

Tambopata National Reserve is an ideal place to spot the jaguar (Panthera onca) because its forest and wetland systems are home to many of the species that this big cat preys upon, including capybaras, peccaries and tapirs.

Credit : Tambopatalodge.com 

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Lions live in prides of anywhere between 3 to 30 beasts. The females, usually all related, stay with the pride for life. Male lions usually leave when they get to about two years of age. It is the females that select and stalk the prey, then make the short dash to pounce and kill it. However, it is the biggest male who will eat first.

What, Where and When

The choice of animals that the lion hunts for food is largely dependent on what sort of food is available in their particular area of habitation. Generally, the scrub country which lions tend to favour more than anywhere else, provides them with many different kinds of herbivores. Their favourites are wildebeest, zebras, antelopes, gazelles and waterbuck. They do though, also have a fondness for warthogs and have been to know lie in wait outside their burrows for hours on end. However, if a lion is hungry enough and cannot find its preferred food it’ll resort to eating whatever it can find, including fish. They also target other large animals such as buffaloes and giraffes, though they do so with great difficulty and with enormous risk to their own lives. Indeed, many lions injure themselves when they try to control bigger animals. It’s not uncommon after such an encounter for an injured lion to be unable to partake in any future hunts.

Most hunting done by lions is under the cover of darkness; in the gloom of an African night they can easily observe and stalk their prey without the threat of detection. It’s actually quite common for lions to sit and observe their prey during daylight hours, usually just before sunset. But they mostly wait until after dark before launching an attack. Similarly, if the landscape is illuminated by bright moonlight, then they’ll wait until it’s obscured before attempting any sort of hunt. The main reason why they do this is simply because their typical habitation is devoid of cover. Often in the daytime, a lion will begin closing in on a potential victim, but will subsequently give itself away, resulting in the prey escaping easily. Lions that live in areas with thicker cover are able to do more of the hunting in daylight hours. Other hunting that occurs in sunlight is directly related to the activity of a particular prey species. For example, when zebras or gazelles drink from lakes or rivers during the heat of the day, their presence often produces a flurry of hunting. But usually, most stalking by lions is done just after sunset, or during the middle of the night, several hours before dawn.

Senses and Deficiencies

More than anything, lions rely on their sight to help them with hunting. Experts have observed individuals stalking under vegetative cover, occasionally sticking their heads up high out of their cover in order to keep track of a particular animal they may be stalking. In the process though, they do sometimes give themselves away inadvertently.

Lions occasionally detect their prey through hearing. They frequently react to the sounds of animals walking or moving through water and set out to investigate. There have also been examples of lions utilising their sense of smell to aid in the hunting process. But generally, lions hunt only what they can see, and are thus not particularly adept at detecting prey in the same way wolves are for example. It’s quite normal for a large group of herbivores to pass right by a pride during the day, due to the fact that the lions normally use daylight hours to snooze.

Working as a Team

Another, or to put it more accurately the most important reason that lions are able to find enough food is that they usually do their hunting cooperatively. They will stalk their victims for up to an hour, but fifteen minutes is more the norm before deciding to pounce. Normally, several lions circle around the herd they are attacking, slowly driving their victims towards some of their fellows hiding in tall grass. These lions, usually females also known as lionesses then attack their prey from the sides or the rear. Cooperative hunting also makes up for another significant problem that lions have in comparison with other predators, their lack of speed. By our standards of course, these mighty creatures are anything but slow, their top seed is around 30mph, but they can only sustain it for around a minute. Indeed, they rarely pursue a prey item for more than 100 yards. By working in groups they are able to tackle prey that would otherwise prove too fast or elusive for them.

Lions also gain another advantage through group hunting when they have killed an animal too large for one to eat alone; with an entire pride partaking in the consumption of food not only does more food go to more mouths at one time, but it also allows the pride to avoid the problem of having to guard or store their food. Such problems are frequently encountered and dealt with by other big cats such as leopards and tigers, who often find ingenious ways of hiding their kills from competitors. Leopards, for example often stash their kills in a tree while tigers will remain in the vicinity of their kill until it’s fully eaten. Lions, being denizens of open country simply don’t have the luxury of being able to hide or shelter the food.

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The snow leopard (Panthera uncia) is a large cat that is native to the mountainous regions of South and Central Asia. Living in the alpine and subalpine zones, snow leopards have evolved and adapted to some of the harshest environments on Earth. They are capable of scaling the steep slopes of mountains with agility and can blend into the landscape to avoid detection while hunting. Female snow leopards can have between one and five cubs, but usually have a litter of two or three. Snow leopard cubs are born with a thick coat of fur but are dependent on the mother until approximately 18 months old. Cubs are also born blind, but their eyes open after about one week.

 Physical Description

Snow leopards typically have thick fur that is whitish-gray in color, and can even have a yellow tinge. The neck and head have solid spots, while the rest of the body has rosettes, which are larger and form a ring that encloses smaller spots. Each leopard has a unique patterns of spots, which the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) uses to identify individual snow leopards when conducting research. Snow leopards are characterized by long and bushy tails, which are used for balance, and can also be draped over their body to provide protection from the cold when sleeping. The cat species is very agile, with forelimbs that are shorter than the hind limbs, and are capable of jumping as far as 50 ft. Their paws are large and covered in fur, which which act as snowshoes, as well as providing padding when climbing on sharp rocks.

Range And Habitat

Snow leopards inhabit various regions across central and northern parts of Asia, including the Himalayas, where they live at high altitudes of up to 18,000 ft above sea level. The snow leopard is known to live in 12 countries, including Mongolia, Russia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan, and China. Snow leopards are solitary animals and they are very elusive. In fact, snow leopards are sometimes referred to as the "Ghost of the Mountains" because they are very rarely seen. There is no term used to describe a group of snow leopards because they are never observed in groups.

Diet

Snow leopards can hunt large animals with weights exceeding their own by up to three times. Their diet is mainly composed of ibex, Argali wild sheep, blue sheep, deer, pikas, marmots, and other small animals. Most animals hunted by the snow leopard are also hunted by the local indigenous populations, and as their prey dwindle, they begin to hunt livestock for survival, resulting in retaliatory killings by the local communities.

Threats And Conservation

It is estimated that between 4,080 and 6,590 snow leopards currently exist in the wild, which is a population decrease of about 20% over the past 16 years. As a result, the species is listed as "Endangered" (EN) on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) Red List. Some of the threats facing snow leopards include poaching, loss of habitat as a result of climate change, retaliatory killings, and reduced prey. Organizations such as the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) are working to reduce the threats faced by snow leopards, as well as reducing human-leopard conflicts. They also focus on increasing anti-poaching efforts and protecting the fragile habitat in order to increase the snow leopard's population in the wild.

Credit : Worldatlas

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Lions, tigers, jaguars, pumas and leopards are different kinds of big cats found all over the world except Australasia. Though big cats differ in size from pet cats, they all belong to the same family and share many characteristics. All are expert hunters, sneaking up on their prey and then pouncing on it. Their sharp claws, powerful jaws and fangs are deadly weapons.

1. Lions

Known for the male’s amazing and majestic mane, the lion is also unusual among all types of big cats in that it lives in social groups called prides. Most other big cats are solitary save for mothers and cubs. Lions are found in the grasslands of Africa and a small region of India. The organization of most prides is a few unrelated or related males, females, and cubs. The males’ job is to protect the pride from being taken over by another group of males, while the females hunt and raise cubs. Most coalitions of males last about three years before they’re ousted by another coalition. Because of this, the lifespan of male lions is much shorter than that of females. Males live about 10 years while females can live as long as 18 years.

2. Tigers

Of all types of big cats, the tiger is the largest in size. It is in even more peril than the lion, and its conservation status overall is endangered. Once ranging from India, Indonesia, and Southeast Asia, and China, it is now confined to small areas in its former range. Stunningly beautiful animals, tigers have orange-red coats with dramatic vertical black stripes that are most prominent on the shoulders and sides. The underside of the animal is white. There’s also white on the cheeks and above the eyes, and white spots on the back of the ears, which are often black.

3. Cheetahs

Thanks to its anatomy, especially the unique flexibility of its spine, the cheetah are considered the fastest land animal. It can achieve short bursts of speed between 58 and 61 miles per hour, which it uses to take down fast prey such as Thomson’s gazelle. This beautiful animal is also vulnerable because of habitat loss and human interference. Some populations are so inbred that the animals are also subject to diseases. It is found in Africa and Iran. Built for speed, the cheetah has a long body, very long legs, and a long tail that seems to help it balance when it makes tight turns. Its fur is tawny, buff, or grayish and covered with dots. The head is small for the body and round, and there are black stripes running from the eyes to the mouth. It ranges in body length from 3.5 to 5 feet and weighs 46 to as much as 160 pounds. 

4. Snow Leopards

This big cat also called the ounce is native to the Himalayas. It used to be the only one of the big cat breeds in the Uncia genus but was moved to Panthera. Its conservation status is vulnerable.

The snow leopard has a dense, fluffy white to gray coat that bears rosettes on the back, the sides, and the tail. There are black spots on the animal’s head and neck, and the belly is a dirty white. Like the cheetah, the snow leopard’s head is small for its body and round. Unlike the cheetah, the snow leopard has a robust body and short legs for moving around the cliffs of the mountains where it lives. Its body ranges from 3.25 to 4.25 feet with a tail that can be 31 to 41 inches long, and it weighs between 55 and 165 pounds. It has large, furry paws that help it walk over snow and a fluffy, long tail that stores fat and can protect the cat’s face when it sleeps.

5. Jaguars

The jaguar is a big cat that lives in the jungle. Specifically, it lives in the jungles of Central and South America and is the only member of the Panthera genus to do so, though it is also found in the grasslands and savannas. This near-threatened cat is often confused with the leopard, but it is a much stockier animal. Like the leopard, its coat is covered in rosettes, though it has broken spots down its spine. Its head is large for its size, its tail is shorter than a leopard’s, and its hindquarters are powerful. As with the leopard, melanistic jaguars, or black panthers, are fairly common.

6. Mountain Lions

This big cat has several names, including cougar, catamount, panther, painter, or puma. Like the jaguar, it’s found in the New World and is a bit smaller, though it does share the other wild cat’s small head and muscular body. Interestingly, some biologists don’t consider the mountain lion one of the big cats just because it doesn’t roar. Yet, it is a large animal with a body length of between 3.6 and 6.5 feet long with a weight of 150 to 230 pounds. Despite this, the mountain lion isn’t always the apex predator in its range, and its kill is sometimes stolen by wolf and coyote packs, bears, and alligators.

7. Leopards

The leopard is a skillful hunter, but like the mountain lion, it’s not always the apex predator in its range. It often has to compete with hyenas and lions. Though it is vulnerable, it has a wider range than the other big cats of the Old World and is found in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, Russia, India, Southeast Asia, and east Asia. There are eight subspecies that look a bit different from each other, with leopards from colder climates having lighter fur than those that live in the jungle and rainforest. Overall, the leopard is vulnerable.

8. Clouded Leopards

Clouded leopards are considered the smallest of the big cats. The cat has a body length is between 2.25 and 3.5 feet and a tail that’s almost as long. This tail helps it balance as it moves among the trees in the Himalayan foothills. Like a squirrel, the clouded leopard can climb down a tree headfirst. This cat weighs between 35 and 51 pounds. Like a house cat, its pupils are vertical slits, and it can purr.

The cat has a powerful bite for its size and takes such large animals as Indian hog deer, binturongs, and pangolins.

Credit :   A-Z animals

Picture Credit : Google 

Takin look a bit large goats but are actually related to sheep. Takin have short horns and a stocky body, covered with dense brown hair. They live just below the treeline, high in the mountains of the eastern Himalayas and in China.

The national animals of Bhutan, the takin is a large, stocky hoofed mammal that sometimes is referred to as a goat antelope. Takins have short legs which are supported by large, two-toed hooves. Their large head is made more distinctive by its long, arched nose and stout horns, which are ridged at the base. These horns are present in both sexes and run parallel to the skull before turning upwards to a short point. The long, shaggy coat is light in color with a dark stripe along the back, and males also have dark faces. Their thick wool often turns black in color on their undersides and legs. The overall coloration ranges from dark blackish to reddish-brown suffused with grayish-yellow in the eastern Himalayas to lighter yellow-gray in the Sichuan Province to mostly golden or (rarely) creamy-white with fewer black hairs in the Shaanxi Province.

Takins are found in the eastern Himalayas. They occur in China, Bhutan, India, and Myanmar. These animals live in various habitats ranging from forested valleys to rocky, grass-covered alpine zones.

Takins are live in small family groups of around 20 individuals, although older males may lead a more solitary life. In the summer, herds of up to 300 individuals gather high on the mountain slopes where favorable feeding sites, salt licks, or hot springs are located. Takins are diurnal creatures feeding in the early morning and late afternoon. These animals may even stand on their hind legs to reach leaves that are over 3 m (10 ft) high. They spend the day in dense vegetation and come out into the open only on cloudy or foggy days. When takins are not feeding, they are usually resting. Each spring, takins gather in large herds and migrate up the mountains. During winter when food becomes scarce, takins moves down to lower, more forested and favor sunny spots upon sunrise. When disturbed, takins gives a 'cough' alarm call and the herd retreats into thick bamboo thickets and lies on the ground for camouflage.

Takins are herbivorous (folivorous) animals. They feed on a variety of leaves and grasses, as well as bamboo shoots and flowers. Salt is also an important part of their diets, and groups may stay at a mineral deposit for several days.

According to the IUCN Red List, the total population size of the takin is unknown. However, there are estimated populations of the takin subspecies in the following areas: Golden takin in China - 5,069 individuals and Mishmi takin in Tibet - 3,500 individuals. Currently, this species is classified as Vulnerable (VU) on the IUCN Red List and its numbers today are decreasing.

Main threats to takins include overhunting and the destruction of their natural habitat. Timber harvesting, farming, pasture burning, cane and bamboo cutting, road construction, all this have destroyed large areas of takin habitat. Disturbance from tourism, competition, and diseases from domestic livestock pose another serious threat to these animals.

Credit : Anamalia 

Picture Credit : Google 

Ungulates are animals whose toenails have evolved into hooves. The number of toes they can be either odd or even. Cattle, deer and hippopotamuses are all even-toed. Horse belong to the odd-toed group, as do rhinoceroses.

The ungulates arose from early mammalian stock at the start of the Cenozoic era some 60 million years ago and by the Eocene, some 20 million years later, they had become large, heavy-bodied herbivores many of which were destined to be replaced, in the Miocene, by fleet-footed grazers. Even in the early days of the ungulates three distinct groups began to emerge. Thus although the cow group (even-toed) and the horse group (odd-toed) may seem linked they have a long history of separate evolution.

Of the two, the even-toed species have proved to be the better survivors for almost all the medium to large plant-eaters in the world belong to this group. The more primitive even-toed species include pigs and the peccaries (found in South America), which have four well-developed toes on each limb. They are omnivorous in their choice of food and their dentition is less specialized than in many other forms. Hippopotamuses, which retreat to water during the daytime, come ashore to feed at night, and in some areas of Africa are major crop thieves. Camels, which are highly adapted for desert life, have only two toes on each foot, as do their South American relatives the closely similar llama, guanaco, and alpaca. All of these animals have some upper teeth.

The upper front teeth of the other even-toed, cud-chewing ungulates are missing and are replaced by a horny pad, but they can take in food tremendously fast, often using the tongue to tear at vegetation. The food is passed to a holding compartment in the stomach and regurgitated later to be masticated thoroughly before being swallowed a second time, after which digestion proper starts. One advantage of chewing the cud is that food which may have been gathered in dangerous areas and rapidly eaten can be digested later in a place of comparative safety. Deer, giraffes, antelopes, cattle, sheep, and goats all chew the cud.

Odd toed-animals were at one time more numerous than at present; today only horses, rhinoceroses, and tapirs survive. The rarity of the first two is largely due to persecution by man, and the true wild horses and asses and the three species of Asiatic rhinoceroses are among the rarest mammals in the world, although the zebra is relatively common in parts of Africa. No odd-toed animal chews the cud, and none has any true horns, those of the rhinoceros being made of compressed hair. The rhinos have three toes on each foot, the tapirs have four on the front feet and three on the hind feet, while horses (including donkeys and zebras) have lost all but the large central toes of each foot. The balance of the leg is therefore completely different from that of the even-toed animals.

A group of animals found in Africa and the Near East and thought to be closely related to the elephants is that of the hyraxes, small, dumpy yet agile creatures which live socially in forested or rocky areas. All have hoof-like nails on the four toes of the front feet and a large claw on the innermost of the three toes of the hind feet.

Credit : David darling 

Picture Credit : Google