Animals are Fascinating

[Rayaan]

This little creature looks like a stick ... and it acts like a stick ...



... But it is not a stick.

It's an animal known as the walking stick insect.

Stick insects, like praying mantis, show rocking behaviour in which the insect makes rhythmic, repetitive side-to-side movements. Functions proposed for this behaviour include the enhancement of crypsis by means of the resemblance to vegetation moving in the wind. However the repetitive swaying movements may be most important in allowing the insects to discriminate objects from the background by their relative movement, a visual mechanism typical of simpler animals. Rocking movements by these generally sedentary insects may replace flying or running as a source of relative motion of objects in the visual field.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phasmatodea

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[youtube]DfoeFzCWrDE[/youtube]

[thesummerqueen]

One day I want to have a salt water tank with an octopus in it. I love 'em.

[Rayaan]

Deep sea creatures are the most bizarre of all. Watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrSu65Bb9X4

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[youtube]eOS20plm7UM[/youtube]

[Dotard]

[youtube]LbqScTVBiWM[/youtube]

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[youtube]gES3l97-jVg[/youtube]

[ib.me.ub]

Wild population:

The Northern White Rhino (Ceratotherium simum) formerly ranged over parts of north-western Uganda, southern Chad, south-western Sudan, the eastern part of Central African Republic, and north-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.[4]

Poachers reduced their population from 500 to 15 in the 1970s and 1980s. From the early 1990s through mid 2003, the population recovered to more than 32 animals. Surveys in 2000 indicated that the population had started recovering, with 30 animals confirmed in 2000, and possibly six others.[5] Since mid 2003, poaching had intensified and reduced the wild population to only 5 to 10 animals (7 actual count worldwide).[6] The 4 known remaining Northern White Rhinos that were in the wild, Garamba National Park, have not been seen in recent years and it is feared that that have been killed.[1] If confirmed, this would make the Northern White Rhino extinct in the wild apart from the last chance efforts by the Ol Pejeta Conservancy to reintroduce it in a wild state.

[Rayaan]

These unique birds are considered a relic from the age of the dinosaurs. They represent the only living member of the family Opisthocomidae, and its close relatives probably died out long ago. These chicken-sized birds weigh less than a kilogram (2 lbs) and have a body length of 61-66 cm (24-26 inches). Their heads are almost bare with a red crest on top and blue flesh around their red eyes. They have olive streaks on the back of their necks and off-white throats and breasts. Their tail feathers are black with lighter tips. The rest of their bodies are chestnut colored.

The Hoatzin is strictly vegetarian, eating the leaves, flowers and fruits of more than 50 species of marshland plants. Hoatzins are very strange among birds, though, because they ferment this vegetable matter in their foregut like cows, sheep, deer and kangaroos, and thus have a specialized digestive system. Nestlings are fed this regurgitated matter. Hoatzins forage in the early morning and early evening, and spend much of the time roosting quietly and digesting their meal.

More facts about the Hoatzin:
http://www.oiseaux-birds.com/card-hoatzin.html
http://www.saveamericasforests.org/Yasun...atzin.html

[Paul the Human]

Feel lucky, punk? Well... do ya?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKPrGxB1Kzc