Thursday, August 28, 2008
Cheetah - The Fastest Land Animal (2454 views)
There’s nothing faster than a cheetah on the hunt. The maximum speed is of 112 km (70 mi) per hour, but the average hunting speed is still of 72-90 km (46-56 mi) per hour.
No living or extinct animal runs or used to run at such speeds. How can this be possible? The cheetah is a very special cat, with specific adaptations.
First, the claws of the cheetah are semiretractile (they do not retract completely into their pads, like in the other cats), functioning like crampons during the race. The paw’s cushions have transversal folds that increase adherence to the ground. The fact that the long tail acts like a rudder during the run helps cheetah overcome preys running in zig zag by making quick turns at amazing speeds.
The cheetah’s spine is extremely elastic, working like a spring. Also, compared with the limbs of other cats, those of the cheetah are extremely long and thin, adapted to running, possessing very lax articulations to the body (at the hip and shoulder), fact that allows them to make large steps. The skeleton of a cheetah is also very light. The elastic spine and the long legs allow the cheetah to make successive jumps 7 m (23 ft) in length each and in 2 seconds a cheetah has already reached 75 km per hour and in 3 even 110 km (that’s faster than most cars can do!). Its most rapid preys, the gazelles, do not overcome 80 km (50 mi) per hour.
During the race, the number of breathing movements booms from 16 per minute to 156. But the cheetah cannot stand a run more than about 800 m (0.5 mi). The weak point of the cheetah is that the cat cannot expel rapidly enough the accumulated heat and it gets overheated. Cheetah’s heart is one third of a human one, related to body’s proportions, fact that also explains cheetah’s lower stamina.
[Read More…]
Monday, August 18, 2008
White Tigers (1057 views)
White tigers are very rarely found in the wild. In about 100 yeas only 12 white tigers have been seen in the wild in India. They are almost extinct and most of the ones living are in captivity, mostly in zoos. This specific tiger is neither an albino nor a seperate subspecies of the tiger. They are beautifully white colored and have black stripes. It has blue eyes and a pink nose. It also has white colored fur. The white tiger is born to a bengal tiger that has the gene needed for white coloring. A pure white tiger has no stripes and are totally white.
Pristine wildness!
The striking white coat is caused by a double recessive allele in the genetic code, and only turns up naturally about once in every 10,000 births. Amazingly, the Bengal tiger is the only subspecies in which it seems to happen. As beautiful as it may look, life as a white tiger can’t be easy when your life depends on being able to hide from and/or sneak up on things.
Habitat & Range
Tigers usually stay in an area from about 10 to 30 square miles where there is enough prey, cover/shelter and water to support them. Territory actually depends on the amount of prey that is available. The more concentrated the prey the smaller an area a tiger needs to survive.
Life span
White tigers in the wild live to be about 10 to 15 years while tigers in zoos usually live between 16 and 20 years.
[Read More…]
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Fluffy Angora Rabbits (2640 views)
The Angora rabbit is a variety of domestic rabbit bred for its long, soft hair. The Angora is one of the oldest types of domestic rabbit, originating in Ankara, Turkey, along with the Angora cat and Angora goat. The rabbits were popular pets with French royalty in the mid 1700s, and spread to other parts of Europe by the end of the century. They first appeared in the United States in the early 1900s. They are bred largely for their long angora wool, which may be removed by shearing, Combing, or plucking (gently pulling loose wool).
There are many individual breeds of Angora rabbits, four of which are ARBA recognized. Such breeds include French, German, Giant, English, Satin, Chinese, Swiss and Finnish, to name a few.
English Angora
This breed is probably the cutest and most distinctive because of it’s long heavy fur that covers it’s ears and face. In full coat, their bunny features are covered and sometimes they are mistaken to be small dogs (or a relative of “Cousin It”). The wool is silky and fine which makes it very soft. The English Angora comes in white and a variety of beautiful colors. The coat is characterized by having little guard hair in proportion to its wool, and wraps rather tightly when spun, with relatively minimal fluffing. It is smallest breed of the four, weighing 5 to 7 1/2 pounds at maturity.
French Angora
French Angoras look more like regular rabbits. They have no wool on their head, face, ears, or the front feet. The wool has a higher percentage of guard hair to underwool, which makes it the easiest to care for. It is valued for its fiber qualities, which are excellent for handspinning. Its wool spins easily, and fluffs out nicely in the yarn. Its mature weight is 8-10 lbs.
