Bird of Paradies Part-3

The Twelve-wired Bird-of-paradise, Seleucidis melanoleucus or Seleucidis melanoleuca, is a medium-sized, approximately 33 cm long, velvet black and yellow Bird of Paradies. The male has a red iris, long black bill and rich yellow plumes along its flanks. From the rear of these plumes emerge twelve blackish, wire-like filaments, which bend back near their bases to sweep forward over the birds hindquarters. The female is a brown bird with black-barred buffy underparts. Its feet are strong, large-clawed and pink in color.The sole representative of the monotypic genus Seleucidis, the Twelve-wired Bird-of-paradise is a bird of lowland forests. The male displays on an exposed vertical perch with its breast-shield flared. Its diet consists mainly of fruites and arthropods.Widely distributed throughout new goinea and salawati Island of lrian jaya, the Twelve-wired Bird-of-paradise is evaluated as Least Concern on the iucn red list of Threatened Species. It is listed on Appendix II of cites. However, it has not been easy to breed this bird in captivity. It has only been successfully bred in Singapore's jurong birds park.

Bird of Paradies Part-2

Ribbon-tailed Astrapia


The Ribbon-tailed Astrapia also known as Shaw Mayer's Astrapia, Astrapia mayeri is a medium-sized, up to 32 cm long (without including the tail of the male, which can be over 1 meter), velvet black Bird of Paradies. The male has an irridesescent olive green and bronze plumage, and is adorned with ornamental "ball" plume above its bill and two extremely long, ribbon-like white tail feathers. The female is a brown bird with an irridesescent head. Hybrids between this species and the stephaniesastrapia, in the small area where their ranges overlap, have been named barnes astrapia.One of the most spectacular Bird of Paradies , the male Ribbon-tailed Astrapia has the longest tail feathers in relation to body size of any bird, over three times the length of its body.

The Ribbon-tailed Astrapia is distributed and endemic to subalpine forests in western part of the central highlands of papua new guinea. Like many other ornamental birds of paradise, the male is polygamous. The Ribbon-tailed Astrapia is the latest bird of paradise to be discovered.

The scientific name commemorates the great naturalist and new guinea explorer fred shaw mayer, who was believed to have discovered the bird in 1938. However, it is now believed that explorer jack hides discovered the bird, while Mayer became interested in it later.

Due to habitat lost and hunted for its plumes, the Ribbon-tailed Astrapia is listed as Near Threatened on the iucn red list of Threatened Species

Leopard Seal

Leopard seals are large members of the seal family reaching between 2.41-3.4 m in length and weighing between 200-591 kg. Females are slightly larger than males. Their massive bodies have large heads and long broad foreflippers. Unlike other seal species that swim by moving their hind limbs side to side, leopard seals swim gracefully using long, powerful, simultaneous strokes of the forelimbs simultaneously. Adults are dark gray to black in color with varying dark spots on the dorsal side and pale on the ventral side. Pup's have soft, thick coats with a dorsal stripe and black spots on the light gray ventral side. Adults have well developed canine teeth, and three tubercles or lobes on the sides of their jaws that allow them to filter krill from the water.

Leopard seals eat a varied diet. They are the only pinnipeds whose diet includes a significant amount of warm-blooded animals. They have been known to attack  and fur seals. They prey on krill (estimated at 45% of their diet), other seals (30%) particularly young crabeater seals,penguins (10%), and fish and cephalopods (10%). Proportions vary according to age and availability. Like other seals, they are also known to scavange the carrion of whales and other sealscrabeater.Leopard seals can dive up to 15 minutes, however because their diet includes warm-blooded animals they are not deep diving seals. Leopard seals are awkward on land, however, their unusually large fore-flippers give them speed and agility in the water. They are sometimes preyed on by orca mens killer whales

Snow Leopard

Body Length(mm) -900-1350

Weight (kg) - 50 average

Litter Size - 2-3 average

Life Span - 15-18

Status - Endangered

U.u.uncia - Asia, Mongolia, Russia

U.u.uncioides - China, Himalayas

There are three main reasons that snow leopards are in trouble. The first reason is that the bones, skin and organs of large cats are valuable in traditional Asian medicine. Tigers are the prefered species for this purpose, but tigers are so rare that it is almost impossible to find one in the wild so snow leopards are substituted for tigers. When you consider that the people who live near snow leopards often earn less than 300 dollars per year and that a poacher can get perhaps $200 for a dead snow leopard (though a middleman can resell it for up to $10,000), it isn’t hard to understand why snow leopards are at risk.

Due to the often-harsh weather conditions that prevail, cubs are always born in the spring, with mating taking place some three months earlier in late winter. This ensures that a food source is abundant and less effort is needed to secure a kill. The litter size is usually between 1-4 (typically two) cubs and they are born after a gestation period of approximately 98 days. The cubs weigh between 320-708g at birth - have a daily average weight gain of approximately 48g per day and stay with their mothers until they are over 18 months old.

Mammoth

Mammuthus primigenius is more commonly known as the Wooly Mammoth. This Ice Age mammal is similar to a mastodon, but with larger tusks and a sloping back. Even at nine feet tall, it is small for a mammoth.
Mammuthus primigenius has a trunk that is somewhat shorter that that of its cousin the elephant. The trunk ends in two fingers, which the Wooly Mammoth uses to bring food to its mouth. The tusks are larger than those of either an elephant or a mastodon and can be used to clear the snow off of its food. These tusks are curved and extend almost down to the ground to reach low-lying bushes.
The Wooly Mammoth's ability to find food beneath snow and ice made it possible for it to live on the tundra of Europe, Asia, and North America during the Ice Age. Even during the harsh winters, the Wooly Mammoth could find grass and moss under the snow. Wooly Mammoths can also forage for tree bark and other foods typically found above the snow.
Since the Wooly Mammoth prefers to live in colder climates, its coat is made up of a double layer of thick, coarse fur over a three-inch layer of fat. The Wooly Mammoth sheds its fur at the beginning of the summer and regrows it in time for the next winter. An extra hump of fat just behind the animal's skull is built up over the summer and used for nutrition when food is scarce during the winter.