Back To Wild

Whooping crane is a very large bird which is endangered. An adult crane has a long neck and its legs are also long. They have a white body with black wingtips which are very prominent when they fly. The forehead and the checks are red in color. They have tufted feathers over the rump.An adult crane is about 150 cm and its wingspan is about 229 cm. it weights around 6000-7800 g.

Whooping Cranes are famous for their loud whooping cries which can be heard as the birds migrate between winter and summer homes. After complex coutship rituals, cranes build nests of vegetation on moist ground. Their sound is like a loud single bugle-like note.

Whooping cranes mainly feed on plants. Very rarely they feed on insects, Aquatic Invertebrates, Reptiles or Amphibians, Small Mammals and Fish

The status of whooping crane in the world is ‘Severely endangered’. They were reduced to 16 individuals in the year 1941. Two Whooping Cranes were shot to death by hunters in Kansas in November 2004. They were mistaken for Sandhill Cranes, a game species. Constant serious management of habitat, captive breeding and reintroduction programs, and population monitoring will be essential to the well-being of the species.

The red wolf is a small and a leaner cousin of the gray wolf. It is gray-black, with a reddish shed which gives it the color for which it is named. The red wolf is about 26 inches at the shoulders. It’s about 4.5-5.5 inches long and this includes the tail. A normal red wolf would weigh about 50-80 lbs. the life span of a red wolf is 6-7 years if it is in the wild and about 15 years in captivity.

The red wolf mainly feed on small mammals like rabbits and rodents. They also feed on insects, berries and rarely on deer.

The red wolves have been hunted to the verge of extinction. In 1980 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service rounded up less than 20 pure red wolves to be bred in captivity. As of 2007, about 207 captive red wolves live at 38 captive breeding facilities across the United States. And it is indeed because of such programs more than 100 red wolves currently live in the wild.

Red wolves are mostly nocturnal, and they converse by scent marking, facial expressions, body postures and vocalization which include howling.

The red wolves are very shy and secretive. They hunt alone or in small groups. Red wolves have a tendency to form pair-bonds that lasts for life.

Their dens are often situated in hollow trees, stream banks and sand knolls.

The mating season is usually during late winter. The gestation period is from 60-63 days and they litter up to 8 pups at a time.

But the sad part is that like all other species even these animals are endangered. Threats to the red wolf include habitat loss due to human development, negative attitudes that hinder restoration, severe weather, deaths by motor vehicles, and illegal killings.

The Arabian Oryx is a medium-sized antelope which weighs around 65 - 75 kg (140 - 170 lb). Before its extermination in the wild, it is believed to have occurred in flat and swelling gravel plains.

The Arabian Oryx feed mainly on grasses. Herbs, seedpods, fruit, fresh growth of trees, tubers and roots are also a part of its diet. An Arabian Oryx can survive for week without water. It is believed that the Arabian Oryx dig shallow depressions in soft ground under trees and bushes for resting.

The Arabian Oryx are believed to live in wandering herds that follow the rare rains. It is able to make use of the fresh plant growth that occurs after a rainfall. Normally the group consists of 8 - 20 animals, but herds of up to 100 have also been reported. Oryx are very friendly with one another and the frequency of aggressive interactions is less. This allows these animals to share speckled shade trees under which they may spend 8 hours in the summer heat mostly during the day.

Arabian Oryx’s previous habitation was the rock-strewn, sandy desert regions of the Arabian and Sinai Peninsula, Jordan, Syria and Iraq. Even though they were wiped out in the wild, it was reintroduced into Oman in the 1980’s.

The Arabian Oryx’s are prized for their horns and coat and that adds them to the endangered species list.

From the time when mechanical hunting and automatic weapons began in the mid 1940’s, the Arabian Oryx became extinct in the wild by 1972.

The main reason for the extinction of the Arabian Oryx in the wild was excessive hunting. They were hunted for both meat and hides. They were mostly hunted by the Bedouin and by sport hunting by motorized

parties. Poaching of re-introduced wild Arabian Oryx has become a serious threat again. About 200 Oryx were taken away or killed by poachers from the re-introduced wild Omani herd in three years after poaching began there in February 1996.

According to the Roman mythology Mercury is the god of commerce, travel and robbery, the Roman equivalent of the Greek god Hermes, the messenger of the Gods. The planet perhaps received this name because it moves so quickly across the sky.

Mercury has been identified from the time when of the Sumerians. Only one space craft has visited Mercury and that is Mariner 10. It flew by three times in 1973 and 1974. Only 45% of the surface was recorded as it is too close to the Sun to be safely imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope.

• Some astronomers believed that the surface of Mercury would be smooth before pictures were taken of its surface.

• When Mariner 10 took pictures of Mercury during its flyby of Venus and Mercury in November 1973, scientists discovered that Mercury is the most cratered planet in the Solar System with a surface similar to Earth’s Moon.

• Mercury has no atmosphere at all. Sunlight reflects off its surface, similar to how light is reflected directly off the Moon’s surface.

•  The lack of atmosphere means that sunlight cannot be spread through the atmosphere. The planet’s sky is dark, just like the Moon’s.

• A year on Mercury is only 88 days long, but a full day (from sunset to sunrise) takes 176 days, even though the planet takes 59 days to rotate on its axis.

• We can see the Mercury only after the Sun rise and just before the sun sets.

• The sun would appear two and a half times bigger than on earth when seen in Mercury.

• Regardless of the fact that it’s the closest planet to the Sun, Mercury is not the warmest. Venus is warmer. Mercury can be one of the coldest planets in the Solar System