REAL incredible animals

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Panthera onca

The jaguar is a big cat, a feline in the Panthera genus, and is the only Panthera species found in the Americas. The jaguar is the third-largest feline after the tiger and the lion, and the largest in the Western Hemisphere. The jaguar's present range extends from Mexico across much of Central America and south to Paraguay and northern Argentina. Apart from a known and possibly breeding population in Arizona (southeast of Tucson), the cat has largely been extirpated from the United States since the early 1900s.

This spotted cat most closely resembles the leopard physically, although it is usually larger and of sturdier build and its behavioral and habitat characteristics are closer to those of the tiger. While dense rainforest is its preferred habitat, the jaguar will range across a variety of forested and open terrain. It is strongly associated with the presence of water and is notable, along with the tiger, as a feline that enjoys swimming. The jaguar is a largely solitary, stalk-and-ambush predator, and is opportunistic in prey selection. It is also an apex and keystone predator, playing an important role in stabilizing ecosystems and regulating the populations of prey species. The jaguar has an exceptionally powerful bite, even relative to the other big cats. This allows it to pierce the shells of armoured reptiles and to employ an unusual killing method: it bites directly through the skull of prey between the ears to deliver a fatal bite to the brain.

The jaguar is a near threatened species and its numbers are declining. Threats include habitat loss and fragmentation. While international trade in jaguars or their parts is prohibited, the cat is still regularly killed by humans, particularly in conflicts with ranchers and farmers in South America. Although reduced, its range remains large; given its historical distribution, the jaguar has featured prominently in the mythology of numerous indigenous American cultures, including that of the Maya and Aztec.

Advanced details:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaguar



Video:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=vZeUs...eature=channel

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Panthera pardus

The leopard (pronounced /ˈlɛpərd/) is a member of the Felidae family and the smallest of the four "big cats" in the genus Panthera, the other three being the tiger, lion and jaguar. Once distributed across eastern and southern Asia and Africa, from Siberia to South Africa, the leopard's range of distribution has decreased radically because of hunting and loss of habitat. It is now chiefly found in sub-Saharan Africa; there are also fragmented populations in Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Indochina, Malaysia, and China. Because of its declining range and population, it is listed as a "Near Threatened" species by the IUCN.

Compared to other members of the Felidae family, the leopard has relatively short legs and a long body with a large skull. It is similar in appearance to the jaguar, but is smaller and more slightly built. Its fur is marked with rosettes similar to those of the jaguar, but the leopard's rosettes are smaller and more densely packed, and do not usually have central spots as the jaguars do. Both leopards and jaguars that are melanistic (completely black or very dark) are known as black panthers.

The species' success in the wild is in part due to its opportunistic hunting behavior, its adaptability to habitats, its ability to run at speeds approaching 58 kilometres per hour (36 mph), its unequaled ability to climb trees even when carrying a heavy carcass, and its notorious ability for stealth. The leopard consumes virtually any animal it can hunt down and catch. Its habitat ranges from rainforest to desert terrains.

Advanced details:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopard



Video:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=pkfNaSZ7SV0

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Puma concolor

The cougar, also known as puma, mountain lion, mountain cat, catamount or panther, depending on the region, is a mammal of the family Felidae, native to the Americas. This large, solitary cat has the greatest range of any large wild terrestrial mammal in the Western Hemisphere, extending from Yukon in Canada to the southern Andes of South America. An adaptable, generalist species, the cougar is found in every major American habitat type. It is the second heaviest cat in the American continents after the jaguar. Although large, the cougar is most closely related to smaller felines.

A capable stalk-and-ambush predator, the cougar pursues a wide variety of prey. Primary food sources include ungulates such as deer, elk, moose, and bighorn sheep, as well as domestic cattle, horses and sheep, particularly in the northern part of its range. It will also hunt species as small as insects and rodents. This cat prefers habitats with dense underbrush and rocky areas for stalking, but it can also live in open areas. The cougar is territorial and persists at low population densities. Individual territory sizes depend on terrain, vegetation, and abundance of prey. While it is a large predator, it is not always the dominant species in its range, as when it competes for prey with other predators such as the jaguar, grey wolf, American Black Bear, and the grizzly bear. It is a reclusive cat and usually avoids people. Attacks on humans remain rare, despite a recent increase in frequency.

Due to excessive hunting following the European colonization of the Americas and the continuing human development of cougar habitat, populations have dropped in most parts of its historical range. In particular, the cougar was extirpated in eastern North America, except for an isolated sub-population in Florida; there are many sightings that claim the animal is recolonizing parts of its former eastern territory, such as Ontario, Maine, the Upper Peninsula and northern Michigan, and southern Indiana.

Advanced details:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cougar

Video:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=HADjWBd_TUY

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A black panther is a large black cat, typically a melanistic colour variant of any of several species of larger cat. Wild black panthers in Latin America are black jaguars (Panthera onca), in Asia and Africa they are black leopards (Panthera pardus), and in North America they may be black jaguars or possibly black cougars (Puma concolor – although this has not been proven to have a black variant), or smaller cats.

Black panthers are also reported as cryptids in areas such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia, and for these, if they do exist, the species is not known. Captive black panthers may be black jaguars, or more commonly black leopards. Black panthers have sometimes been regarded as forming different species from their normally-colored relatives.

The name "panther" is often limited to the black variants of the species, but also commonly refers to those that are normally-colored (tawny or spotted), or to white color variants: white panthers.

Advanced details:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_panther

Video:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=jXNWH...eature=related

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genius Lynx

A lynx is any of the four Lynx genus species of medium-sized wildcats. The name "lynx" originated in Middle English via Latin from Greek word "lunx",derived from the Indo-European root "*leuk-", meaning "light, brightness", in reference to the luminescence of its reflective eyes. There is considerable confusion about the best way to classify felids at present, and some authorities classify them as part of the genus Felis. The Caracal, despite sometimes being called Persian lynx or African lynx, does not belong to this genus.

Appearance

Lynx have short tails and characteristic tufts of black hair on the tip of their ears.They have a ruff under the neck, which has black bars (not very visible), resembling a bow tie. They have large padded paws for walking on snow, and long whiskers on the face.

The large body colour varies from medium brown to gold-ish to beige-white; and occasionally, is marked with dark brown spots, especially on the limbs. All species of lynx also have white fur on their chests, bellies and on the insides of their legs, which are extensions of the chest and belly fur. Also, the lynx's colouring, fur height and paw size varies by its climate range—in the Southwestern United States, the fur and colour are short-haired, dark and the paws are smaller and less padded; as the lynx ranges to its colder northern climates, the fur gets progressively thicker (for warmth), the colour gets lighter (for camouflage) and its paws enlarge and become more padded (for snowy environments). Their paws may become larger than a human hand or foot.

They have extremely good hearing and have 28 teeth, which stab deeply into their prey. This can be especially helpful to the lynx because they are not the most efficient hunters and they lose most of their prey to a variety of factors.
The smallest species are the bobcat and the Canada lynx, while the largest is the Eurasian lynx, however there are considerable variations within species.

Species

The four living species of the Lynx genus are believed to have evolved from the "Issoire lynx", which lived in Europe and Africa during the late Pliocene to early Pleistocene. The Pliocene felid Felis rexroadensis from North America has been proposed as an even earlier ancestor; however, this was larger than any living species, and is not currently classified as a true lynx:

• Eurasian Lynx
• Canada Lynx
• Iberian Lynx
• Bobcat

Advanced details:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynx

Video:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=YzbRW54VpbM&feature=fvsr

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Chrysopelea

Chrysopelea, or more commonly known as the flying snake, is a genus that belongs to the family Colubridae. Flying snakes are mildly venomous, though they are considered harmless because their toxicity is not dangerous to humans. Their range of habitat is mostly concentrated in Southeast Asia, the Melanesian islands, and India.

Gliders

Chrysopelea is also known under its assigned common name "flying snake". It glides by using its ridge scales along its belly, pushing against rough bark surface of tree trunks, allowing it to move vertically up a tree. Upon reaching the end of a tree's branch, the snake continues moving until its tail dangles from the branch's end. It then makes a J-shape bend, leans forward to select the level of inclination it wishes to travel to control its flight path, as well as selecting a desired landing area. Once it decides on a destination, it propels itself by thrusting its body up and away from the tree, sucking in its stomach, flaring out its ribs to turn its body in a "pseudo concave wing" all the while making a continual serpentine motion of lateral undulation parallel to the ground to stabilise its direction in midair in order to land safely.

The combination of sucking in its stomach and making a motion of lateral undulation in the air makes it possible for the snake to glide in the air, where it also manages to save energy compared to travel on the ground and dodge terrestrial bounded predators. The concave wing that a snake creates in sucking its stomach, flattens its body to up to twice its width from back of the head to the anal vent, which is close to the end of the snake's tail, causes the cross section of the snake's body to resemble the cross section of a frisbee or flying disc. When a flying disc spins in the air, the designed cross sectional concavity causes increased air pressure under the centre of the disc, causing lift for the disc to fly. A snake continuously moves in lateral undulation to create the same effect of increased air pressure underneath its arched body to glide. Flying snakes are able to glide better than flying squirrels and other gliding animals, despite the lack of limbs, wings, or any other wing-like projections, gliding through the forest and jungle it inhabits with the distance being as great as 100 m. Their destination is mostly predicted by ballistics; however, they can exercise some in-flight attitude control by "slithering" in the air.

Advanced details:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysopelea

Video:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=3vhgC_g1cmU

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Ceratiidae & Lophiidae

More than a mile beneath the ocean’s surface there is no sunlight, but the darkness does not reign undisturbed: Anglerfish and other bioluminescent animals cast an ominous glow in the sea’s deepest reaches. They live in water that hovers just above freezing and that exerts pressures of thousands of pounds per square inch. The mysterious and bizarre-looking anglerfish, which bear names like triplewart sea devil and wolf-trap anglerfish, sport remarkable adaptations that allow them to thrive where shallow-water fish would instantly perish. Although anglerfish are notoriously difficult to collect and study, scientists are steadily learning more about their biology and their evolutionary origins. Earlier this year an analysis of mitochondrial DNA conducted by researchers in the United States, Japan, and Taiwan estimated that the first anglerfish appeared about 160 million years ago, during the Jurassic Period, and quickly diversified as they spread into habitats ranging from shallow waters to the continental shelves to the harsh deeps. Today 321 species swim the waters of the world.

1. AND THERE WAS LIGHT
Most deep-sea anglerfish lures glow with light that is generated by an enzyme called luciferase. Some species make the light themselves, while others harbor colonies of luminescent bacteria that do the job for them. In addition to attracting prey, the fish’s blue-green radiance may attract mates and ward off predators.

2. GONE FISHING
Over millions of years of evolution, the front-most spine of the anglerfish dorsal fin developed into a fishing rod with fleshy “bait” dangling at the end. The creature floats passively and wiggles its rod until a prey fish approaches. This lie-in-wait strategy was long suspected and finally confirmed in 2005 by a remotely operated underwater vehicle that captured some of the first footage of an anglerfish in the wild.
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3. THE BETTER TO EAT YOU WITH
When the anglerfish’s jaw opens, it creates suction that pulls her victim inside. In some species, retractable teeth spring down, trapping the meal. An expand*able stomach can hold fish larger than the anglerfish herself. High-speed cinematography from the University of Washington has revealed that anglerfish can pop open their mouths in just four milliseconds.

4. CLINGY RELATIONSHIPS
The male anglerfish chomps down on the female, which may be 25 times his size, and never lets go. His circulatory system fuses with hers, and all of his own organs—except for his reproductive system—shut down. He siphons off nutrients from his mate and in return provides a permanent sperm bank. At just 6.2 millimeters long, a swamp-dwelling male anglerfish from Southeast Asia, first described in 2005, is currently regarded as the world’s smallest vertebrate.

Advanced details:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglerfish

Video:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=UXl8F-eIoiM

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Chauliodus sloani

A viperfish is a deepwater fish in the genus Chauliodus, with long, needle-like teeth and hinged lower jaws. They grow to lengths of 30 to 60 cm (12 - 24 inches). Viperfish stay near lower depths (250–5,000 feet) in the daytime and shallow at night. Viperfish mainly stay in tropical and temperate waters. It is one of the fiercest predators in the very deep part of the sea and is believed to attack its prey by luring the victim close to itself with a light producing organ. This organ is called a photophore and is located on the end of its dorsal spine. It flashes this natural light on and off while at the same time moving the dorsal spine around like a fishing rod and hanging completely still in the water, and also uses the voluntary natural light producing organ to communicate to its potential mates and rivals.

Viperfish vary in color between green, silver and black. It uses its fang-like teeth to immobilize its prey, and would not be able to close its mouth because of their length if it were not able to curve them behind its head. The first vertebra behind the head of the viperfish is known to absorb the shock of its attacks, which are mainly targeted against dragonfish and other small creatures. They are able to undergo long periods with scarce or no food.

Viperfish are believed to live up to 30 years to 40 years but in captivity rarely live more than a few hours. Some species of dolphins and sharks are known to prey upon viperfish. Scientists believe that a viperfish can swim at a speed of two body lengths per second but that is not yet the official speed.

Advanced details:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viperfish

Video:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=3mDwZWwXP3U

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Draco volans

The Flying Dragon is a member of the genus of gliding lizards Draco. It can spread out folds of skin attached to its movable ribs to form "wings" that it uses to glide from tree to tree over distances upwards of 8 meters (25 feet); however, like all modern reptiles, it lacks the ability to sustain powered flight, and is capable only of gliding. Its wings are brightly colored with orange, red and blue spots and stripes, and they provide camouflage when folded. The flying dragon can reach lengths as long as 19 - 23 cm. It feeds on arboreal ants and termites.

In order to move from one place to another, Flying Dragons will spread the skin flaps along their abdomens and glide out of trees or from other high areas. They never glide when it is raining or when it is windy. When the Flying Dragon is about to take off, it will point its head toward the ground.

Advanced details:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_dragon

LEAPING LIZARD
The flying dragon can glide for up to 50 meters (164 feet).
It jumps from a tree and spreads out folds of skin.
These folds act as wings and let the lizard glide through the air.

Video:

"flying snake & gliding lizard"
http://youtube.com/watch?v=RLbkV...01BACD&index=3

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Harpegnathos saltator (India), Myrmecia sp. (Australia).

Most ants can't jump, however, a few species have the abiltiy to jump. Indias Harpegnathos saltator, also known as 'Jerdons jumping ant', can jump up to 18cm which helps it catch prey. Australias Myrmecia sp, also known as 'bull ants', 'jack jumpers' or 'hopper ants' can jump too.

These ants have many similarities. They have large mandibles, large eyes and a strong sting all of which aid hunting. They forage individually, even though they live in colonies. Fights between ants of the same colony often break out.
Gamergates are very rare and are known to exist in both 'Harpegnathos saltator' and 'Myrmecia pyriformis'. This is where a female worker ant has the ability to mate and reproduce, thus sustaining the colony after the loss of the queen.

Although these ants appear similar and have similar 'rare' traites not often found in ants, they are from different sub famies: Harpegnathos saltator being 'Ponerinae' and Myrmecia sp being 'Myrmeciinae'.

Location
- India's Harpegnathos saltator nest is found in small mounds in the ground, they close the nest entrance at night.
- Australia's Myrmecia sp normally nest under rocks or make nests from fine gravel.

Queen
Queens of jumping ants look similar to the workers and are very hard to differnetiate.

Workers
Up to 40mm. Workers come in a range of colours including oranges, yellows, reds, browns and blacks.

Diet
These ants catch and eat small insects, honeydew, seeds, fruit, fungi, and nectar.

Colony size
These ants are often seen individually or in a small group. Their colonies are very small.

Risk level 3
These ants are aggressive, they have a very strong bite and sting.

Pet level 3
The sting and aggression of these ants makes keeping these ants risky. They are however very interesting to watch and smaller colony sizes can make keeping them more practical.

Advanced details:
Jack jumper ant
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_jumper_ant
Jerdon's jumping ant
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harpegnathos_saltator
Bulldog ant
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulldog_ant



Videos:
Jack Jumper ant
http://youtube.com/watch?v=8lkjxjDZiI8
Jumping ants
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Mv5lJvWkTQ0