Animals 31-35 in our '50 incredible animals' series

Hi Everyone!

Welcome back to our blog, today we are sharing another 5 incredible animals. This is part of a series to celebrate our 50th blog post, all about unusual animals! Enjoy!

31. Pangolins

These creatures are often mistaken for reptiles but they are in fact mammals. They are covered in scales and use them to defend themselves because similar to a hedgehog, they curl up into a ball. They eat ants, termites and larvae. They eat using their tongue, which is very long- sometimes even longer than their body! Sadly, Pangolins are in high demand as their meat is considered a delicacy their scales are used in traditional folk remedies, which means that there is an illegal trade. Luckily, there have been many initiatives put in place to help these animals by WWF and similar organisations.

32. Macropinna Microstoma

This is a species of fish that live at about 600m below sea level. They hang nearly motionless in the water and have a very unusual fluid-filled shield-shaped space at the top of their head, where you can see the lenses of their eyes. They are found off the Californian coast and in the north Pacific ocean. Little is known about them but according to Science Daily, 'MBARI researchers speculate that Macropinna microstoma may eat animals that have been captured in the tentacles of jellies, such as this siphonophore in the genus Apolemia.'. Meaning that it basically eats organisms with complicated names! To truly understand how fascinating this creature is, you just need to look at an image.

33. Star-nosed mole

The star-nosed mole is such a peculiar creature and looks like a mixture of a mole and an octopus. It is nearly blind and yet is one of the fastest eaters in the world, gobbling up a worm or insect in a quarter of a second! National Geographic states that 'The mole hunts by bopping its star against the soil as quickly as possible; it can touch 10 or 12 different places in a single second. It looks random, but it's not. With each touch, 100,000 nerve fibres send information to the mole’s brain. That’s five times more touch sensors than in the human hand, all packed into a nose smaller than a fingertip' Not much is known about them but they truly are fascinating! They do look a little creepy though...

34. Elephant Shrew

The elephant shrew gets its name because this shrew has an elephant-like trunk. The short-eared elephant shrew lives in countries such as Namibia, Botswana and South Africa, but the different types can live nearly anywhere! They act as a cross between a rat and a rabbit as they look similar to rats and yet enjoy digging more like a rabbit. They are very small and territorial. One of the most fun things about them which point to rabbit-like characteristics is that they hop around and can jump high to help catch prey. However, they are also fast runners, reaching speeds of 18mph! They are interestingly related to elephants too!

35. Lowland Streaked Tenrec

This is the only known mammal that uses 'stridulation' for generating sound, stridulation is when sound is created by rubbing together certain body parts. An example of this would be crickets and grasshoppers. These are found in Madagascar and are about 12-16cm long. Their spines are very similar to a hedgehog, except of course for the unique yellow stripes, and are used for self-defence. They live in tropical forests and dig interconnecting burrows. They live in family units of up to 20 individuals, which is different to other Tenrecs, as these roam solitary. They eat earthworms and other various insects.

Thank you so much for reading this and we'll be back soon!

Green World Blog Team

Sources:
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/facts/pangolins
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090223150331.htm
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/star-nosed-mole-touch-pain-senses
https://www.britannica.com/animal/elephant-shrew
https://animalia.bio/lowland-streaked-tenrec

Images:
Pangolin: This image, owned by flowcomm (on flickr.com), is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
Star-nosed mole: This image, owned by kinskarije (on flickr.com), is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
Elephant shrew: This image, owned by Peter Miller (on flickr.com), is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
Lowland Streaked Tenrec: This image, owned by Frank Vassen (on flickr.com), is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Comments

16.08.2020 Animal of the week: Elephant

Hello. On the 12th of August it was International Elephant Day, so we decided that this week's post should be about elephants. Elephants are the largest living land mammals. There are three types of elephant; the African bush elephant; the African forest elephant and the Asian elephant. African elephants have larger ears, whereas Asian elephants have smaller ears. Elephants use their trunks to breath, bring food and drink to their mouths and to grasp objects. Elephants' legs are like pillars. They carry the Elephant's massive weight. African bush elephants weigh 6000kg, Asian elephants weigh 4000kg and African forest elephants weigh 2700kg. Basically, they are very heavy.Elephants eat grasses, small plants, bushes, fruit, twigs, tree bark, and roots. Elephants can live up to 70 years old in the wild. They communicate by sight, touch and smell. Sadly, these wonderful mammals are in danger. African elephants are listed as vulne...

10 Animals on the Edge of Extinction No. 10- The Javan Rhino

The Javan rhino is listed as the 1st animal on WWF’s list of the 10 world’s most endangered animals, and I for my part, had never heard of it! If you hadn’t either, we’re changing that now. A bit about the rhino’s lifestyle The Javan rhinos are now exclusively found on the island of Java in Indonesia, but were once found in vast regions of northeast india and Southeast Asia. They have a dark grey colour which looks almost black when wet, and their (often pink) skin folds look a bit like plated armor. Both males and females have lower incisors which resemble tusks that they use to fight. Males have one relatively short horn of about 25 cm (10 inches). Javan Rhinos live in tropical forests, marshy areas and in the thick bush. They are mainly browsers and eat over 100 plants species they find in the forest, weigh between 900 and 2300 kg (1984-5071 pounds) and are between 3 and 3.2 meters (10- 10.5 feet) long. How endangered are we talking? Javan rhinos are the most ...

Announcement: Factfile

This image is owned by a blog editor.

Ozone layer

Hi everyone, What even is ozone? And the ozone layer? Where does the hole in the ozone layer come from and what does it mean? Is it dangerous? What can be done? Often the ozone-talk can be complicated and confusing, keeping an overview is hard and understanding all the problems always difficult. Let us break it down a bit for you: What is the ozone layer? We'll start with the basics: The ozone layer is part of the stratosphere, which is the second layer of the Earth's atmosphere, between 10 and 50 km above the Earth's surface and made up of protective gases. One of these protective gases is ozone. There is not much ozone in the atmosphere, only 0.3 molecule of ozone per 1 million molecules of air. This is because ozone is chemically unstable and only forms when ultra violet radiation (UV light) hits oxygen and breaks the bonds between the atoms. It fact it is so unstable that even when it has formed, it breaks down again relatively quickly. This leads to ozone turning back ...

Linking climate change and inequality - 'The Great Carbon Divide'

Hey everyone, Have you heard of 'The great carbon divide‘? It is often referred to as the 'carbon footprint gap' or the 'emissions imbalance‘, and produces frightening numbers. The great carbon divide describes the huge gap between the amount of carbon dioxide the rich versus the poor emit, and these numbers shocked even us. What does this mean? There have been many different studies, and all of them show terrifying results. One study from the Guardian and Oxfam, reports that the richest 1% of the world's population emit more carbon than the poorest 66%. The richest 1% consist of 77 million people, which may seem like a lot at first, but the poorest 66% refers to over 5 billion people! Africa, which is home to 17% of the world's population, only causes 4% of the world's emissions. This top 1% emitted 16% of global CO2 emissions in 2019, that's 5.9 billion tonnes of CO2. Modelling suggests that it would take someone who isn't in the top 1% about 150...

Ways to help make your household environmentally friendly

We have told you a bit about the problems that the environment is facing in previous posts but we haven’t told you how to help the environment around the house. You don’t even need a garden to make a difference! Ways to help stop global warming Tip 1: Turn the lights off when you leave a room. Tip 2: Walk or cycle on short journeys. Tip 3: Don’t have the windows open and the heaters on at the same time. Tip 4: Never leave your engine running Tip 5: If you can, buy an electric car as these produce less Co2. Ways to help stop plastic pollution Tip 1: Buy a water bottle. It seems simple but every year the UK uses an estimated 13 billion plastic bottles. Tip 2: Use a bar of soap and a bar of shampoo instead of shower gel and bottled shampoo. Some say soap can dry your skin out but if you do your research you can find plastic-free high-quality soap, perhaps at a price but it depends on where you get it from. Tip 3: Make...

Green World

Search This Blog