Capybara
The capybara is the largest rodent in the world. The capybara’s name comes from the native people of South America. It means "master of the grass." The scientific name of the capybara is hydrochoerus hydrochaeris, which means "water pig" in Greek. Capybaras have been in existence since the Pleistocene epoch. Their ancient ancestors were rodents that lived about sixty million years ago. The average size of a capybara is four feet in length and two feet in height. This is about the size of a sheep. Capybaras usually weigh between sixty and one hundred and forty pounds. Many people think the capybara looks like a larger version of a guinea pig. All capybaras have large flat noses, webbed feet, short legs, and no tail. Their fur is very coarse and it is usually a reddish-brown color. Capybaras also have large incisor teeth that continuously grow. Capybaras must constantly gnaw and chew on wood and nuts to wear their teeth down. To protect themselves from the hot sun, capybaras will often rest in nearby pools of water. They will also be found lying mud or in the shade.
Capybaras are found in South American countries such as Brazil and Venezuela. They are well adapted for living on land and in the water. Herds of capybaras, consisting of twenty or more capybaras, live on the grasslands and near riverbanks, or in swamps and marshes. Capybaras are herbivores whose main diet is water plants and grasses. Occasionally a capybara will also eat leaves, seeds and the bark of young trees. Because they are herbivores, they do not have any distinctive hunting habits.
Capybaras are shy creatures that don’t interact with other animals on a frequent basis. They are intelligent but quiet and they rarely fight each other, or their enemies. Within a herd of capybaras, there is one dominant male who keeps the herd in order. He also defends the herd from intruding animals. Capybaras reproduce sexually by mating in shallow water. They can mate during any time of the year but capybaras most often mate during the start of the rainy season. A female capybara typically gives birth from one to eight babies. A baby capybara is born with fur and it’s eyes open. The babies can eat grass just like the adult capybaras and they can take care of themselves much better than most baby mammals. However, baby capybaras drink their mother’s milk and stay with their mother for at least four months after their birth.
The Pygmy three-toed- sloths are described to have buff-colored faces with dark circles that surround the eye and go outwards to their temples. Like all sloths, they are always in doldrums which can be very unbeneficial to them. They have clay-orange fur that covers their face and their hair is long and bushy. “Long hair hangs forward to the forehead, giving the impression of a hood” (Grzimek 161). Their outer fur has coated an alga that is used as camouflage to avoid predators. If they were attacked, they have a high probability of surviving due to their ability to heal from grievous wounds. These sloths have a total of 18 teeth, 10 coming from their upper jaw. Similar to other sloths their body temperature regulation is imperfect (“Bradypus pygmaeus pygmy three-toed sloth” (a)).
On the first stage of development the litter could be of 2 to 7 minks. They are born blind and deaf with little to no fur. They grow reddish hair when they are 2 weeks old. When they are finally 5 weeks old their eyes will star to open in the mean time the mothers have to feed them and protect them from predators.
Unlike the maned wolf and coyote, Darwin’s fox lives in the temperate forests, especially near Chile, or any other place in South America. Some species live on Nahuelbuta National Park or in Chiloe Island. Alike the coyote and maned wolf, Darwin’s fox is omnivorous and a secondary consumer. It eats mammals, invertebrates, reptiles and birds as well as fruits. Because of it’s small size, Darwin’s fox is easier to get caught by predators such as wild and domesticated dogs as well as pumas.
Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment explores the themes of guilt and the consequences of committing immoral actions. Of all the deep, thought-provoking concepts put forth in Crime and punishment, the idea that guilt can be an adequate punishment more valid than any punishment executed by society as a whole is the most far reaching and supported by the novel. Crime and Punishment follows Rodian Raskolnikov’s life from just a few days before he commits two brutal murders to when he confesses his crimes and is convicted and sentenced to several years in prison. Initially, Rodian had successfully gotten away with the murder of two people. Raskolnikov’s guilt-driven madness has given him an immunity and even investigators he confesses to think he couldn’t be guilty. As a result, his guilt continues to feed on his conscience to the point where he is constantly miserable. Raskolnikov’s true punishment is the futility of his attempt to escape the guilt of his actions without confessing and feeling adequately punished.
The manatee is a large, bulky aquatic mammal with flippered forelimbs and a spatula-shaped tail. Manatees can grow to 12 feet in length and weigh up to 3500 pounds. They may live to be 50 years old. It might be very difficult to imagine, but manatees (also known as 'sea cows') share a common ancestor with elephants, but did not evolve from the elephant, the elephant is considered the manatee's closest living relative. The manatee's vaguely human-like face is sometimes described as one only a mother could love. Indeed, it is difficult to understand how sailors ever mistook a manatee for a beautiful
One of the species I chose to center my research paper on is the Tufted Capuchin Monkey. The Tufted Capuchin Monkey’s scientific name is the Cebus Apella Apella, yet they are also known as brown capuchin, black-capped capuchin, or even pin monkey. The Tufted Capuchin is most commonly found east of the Andes from Colombia and Venezuela to Paraguay and Northern Argentina. We find these unendangered monkeys to be living in rain forests, low montane forests, and semi-deciduous lowlands. Also, Capuchin Monkeys are found to have the widest range and broadest habitat tolerances of any other Cebus species.
The gorillas live mainly in coastal West Africa in the Congo, Zaire, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Cameroon. Gorillas live in the rain forest. They usually live on the ground but build nest in trees to sleep in. Gorilla troops keep a 15-20 square mile range which often overlaps the range of other troops. There are three different kinds of gorillas. The eastern lowland gorilla the western lowland and the mountain gorilla. They are herbivores and eat only wild celery, roots, tree bark pulp, fruit, stems of many plants and bamboo shoots. They spend nearly half their day eating.
tail. They have gray or rosy brown backs with lighter gray or brown hind legs and have
After researching and observing the lives of orangutans I can support my hypothesis. The orangutans are restricted into a small area, fed when the trainers feed them, and live on the ground because there are no trees causing them to have a different lifestyle than the wild orangutans. The captive orangutans are taken care of by the trainer and never have to struggle to get food. They seem to sit and sleep at the same time, for majority of the time I was observing. There are no predators for them to have to fight off since they are separated, where in the wild they would have to protect themselves and in some cases their offspring. If an adult female were to give birth while in captivity, the offspring would grow up to have a completely different lifestyle than a juvenile in the wild. The juvenile is cared for and protected by the trainers more than they would be by their own mother. Being in captivity gives the primates the option of medicine in cases of sickness or an injuries. In the wild the primates have to live without the nurture of these trainers which is why they tend to live...
Several kinds of baboons live in Africa and southwestern Arabia. These include the hamadryas baboon, which lives on plains and rocky hills of Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and eastern Africa near the Red Sea, and the chacma baboon, which inhabits rocky regions and open woodlands in southern Africa. Olive baboons inhabit the Kekopey cattle ranch located near the town of Gilgil, Kenya. “The central part of the ranch consists of open grassland studded with occasional patches of bushy shrub, scattered thornbush, and small groves of giant fever trees” (Smuts 17). They eat a wide variety of foods including insects, flowers, leaves, fruits of bushes and herbs, and most significant of all, the grass itself. “Baboons eat the green blades of grass during the rainy seasons and dig for corms-the underground storage organ of sedge grasses-when the ranch is dry” (Smuts 17-18). They can carry food in pouches inside their cheeks.
What it looks like: Siberian tiger is the largest and most rare of all members of the cat family. This cat is 8-10 feet long, excluding their 25-38 inch rattling tail. This species of tiger weighs 400-700 pounds. Like all members of the tiger family, males are significantly larger than females.
Sikes, Roberts. and William L. Gannon. "Guidelines of the American Society of Mammalogists for the Use of Wild Mammals in Research." Journal of Mammalogy 92.1 (Feb. 2011): 235-253. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 5 Oct. 2011.
Giraffes are herbivorous creatures that usually inhabit environments such as grasslands, Savannas and woodlands that are less dense. Some are also found in desert environments like the Angolan giraffe. Giraffes prefer a few number of trees to feed from, an example of their most prefer trees is the genera Acacia, Commiphora and Terminallia. Other food sources are fruits and shrubs that giraffes can find while searching for food. A giraffe can eat up to 34 kilograms of food daily. Although it’s an herbivorous creature, giraffes have been seen licking dried meat off bones if passing by a carcass.
One important and what I feel is the greatest animal studied in zoology is the giraffe also known as Giraffa camelopardalis. The giraffe is the tallest animal averaging seventeen feet. Giraffes usually weigh about 2,500 lbs. Giraffes along with their extremely tall bodies have tongues usually fifteen inches long.