Golden Cowry

The golden cowrie is a marine snail named for its brilliant orange shell. It is among the largest of the world's 250 known cowrie species, reaching four inches (ten centimeters) in length.

Rare and reclusive, these mollusks spend most of their lives hiding under rocks in the cracks and crevices of reefs in the south Pacific. They come out only at night to feed on sponges and algae.

Golden cowries are egg-shaped with a flat base and a narrow opening. Like other cowries, their shells are smooth and highly polished. They protect their glossy finish by wrapping their brightly colored mantle lobes nearly completely around their shells when they move.

Golden cowrie shells have been used as currency and religious symbols throughout the South Pacific. On the island of Fiji, they were worn on a necklace by a chieftain as a symbol of status and rank. Ancient Romans even used the word porculi, or little pigs, to refer to cowries. The word eventually transformed to porcelain to describe fine pottery.

Golden cowrie shells are among the hardest shells to find and are prized by collectors. Unfortunately, habitat loss and over-harvesting are hurting the wild population numbers.

Argentine Ants

Probably the largest super colony in the world, the Argentine ants have literally "conquered" Europe by having a network of Argentine ant nests stretching at least 6,000 kilometers across Europe from Italy to Portugal. These ants were originally from Argentina and California when sailors accidentally brought them to Europe.

Just how a supercolony forms has long puzzled biologists. Back in the ant's native range in and around Argentina, the species doesn't seem cooperative at all. Colonies stay small, and workers clash violently with neighbors of the same species. Yet in the Europe region, the ants are welcomed and recognized throughout every nest, they treat each other as a member of their family.

The cooperative powers of Argentine ants have even made them a serious agricultural and domestic pest in Europe! Argentine ants are one of the worlds most invasive and problematic ant species. They are very aggressive, and although they are not poisonous, they do bite people.

Because of their sheer numbers, appetite and aggressiveness, Argentine ants can have a massive impact on the natural environment. While they are one of the major household and garden pests, they pose a serious threat to the conservation values of our reserves and natural areas. These threats include:

• eliminating other species of ants
• competing with kiwi for food such as insects and worms
• competing with other native birds and lizards for nectar
• displacing and killing native invertebrates

China Golden Monkey

Chinese children are very familiar with the legend of a magical monkey king called "Sunwukong", who is believed to have helped the weak with kindness, and fought evil with justice. But the truth is, real monkeys are fighting mankind for their own survival. There are three species of Golden Monkeys who all live in the forests of China, with some species in the mountains. Golden monkeys live in large groups into the hundreds. They seem to have a hierarchical society, like baboons, and inhabit the bamboo jungles, coniferous forests, and rhododendron thickets found in the high mountains and are mainly distributed in Sichuan, Gansu, Shaanxi provinces and Shennongjia mountainous area of Hubei Province in China.This area is snowbound in the winter. Therefore, to adapt to the cold, golden monkeys have developed robust bodies and long thick fur that covers their shoulders. During winter, they survive by eating slow-growing lichens. Their bright blue faces are offset by flame-orange fur. Sexual dimorphism is expressed in the greater length of the males' canines. The males also produce wart-like growths at the corners of their upper lips, which are considered a secondary sexual trait.

Golden monkeys are rare and obscure, and they're just beginning to be studied. Living in the mountains where their habitats are disappearing rapidly as the countryside is cleared for more pastures, villages, and roads, Chinese golden monkeys are highly endangered. So it's a race to study them before they disappear.

In the past 40 years, the living area of the Yunnan golden monkeys has shrunk by a third, while the pasture area created by fire and timber-harvesting has doubled. The monkeys are also killed for their beautiful fire-orange fur and also their bones, which are believed by Asians to hold special medicinal powers.

More than 86% of monkey groups were separated by roads and villages, which blocked communication and resulted in in-breeding and species degeneration. Small groups in the forests have been wiped out. Those that are left are too few to carry on the species line and are at the edge of extinction.

Attempts at artificial breeding of Golden Monkeys have encountered many difficulties. In Kunming Institute of Zoology, almost all the 10 monkeys born in the past decade were male, which scientists could not explain. Perhaps not surprisingly, researchers have discovered that the best place to protect them is not in laboratories or breeding centers, but in their natural habitats.

Black Widow

Black widows are notorious spiders identified by the colored, hourglass-shaped mark on their abdomens. They are found in temperate regions around the world, and are known to be the most venemous insect in the world.

This spider's bite is much feared because its venom is reported to be 15 times stronger than a rattlesnake's. In humans, bites produce muscle aches, nausea, and a paralysis of the diaphragm that can make breathing difficult. Black widow bites can be fatal—usually to small children, the elderly, or the infirm. Fortunately, fatalities are fairly rare. The spiders are nonaggressive and bite only in self-defense.

The animals most at risk from the black widow's bite are insects—and male black widow spiders. Females sometimes kill and eat their counterparts after mating in a macabre behavior that gave the insect its name. Black widows are solitary year-round except during this violent mating ritual.

These spiders spin large webs in which females suspend a cocoon with hundreds of eggs. Spiderlings disperse soon after they leave their eggs, but the web remains. Black widow spiders also use their webs to ensnare their prey, which consists of flies, mosquitoes, grasshoppers, beetles, and caterpillars. Black widows are comb-footed spiders, which means they have bristles on their hind legs that they use to cover their prey with silk once it has been trapped.

To feed, black widows puncture their insect prey with their fangs and administer digestive enzymes to the corpses. By using these enzymes, and their gnashing fangs, the spiders liquefy their prey's bodies and suck up the resulting fluid.

Lung Fish

Have you seen a sleeping fish? How about a fish that can survive in the air? The Dipnoi are a group of sarcopterygiian fish, or are commonly known as the lungfish. Their "lung" is a modified swim bladder, which in most fish is used for buoyancy in swimming, but in the lungfish , the swim bladder is not only used for buoyancy, but also for absorbing oxygen and removes wastes.

During the drought in Africa and South America, the lungfish are able to survive when their pools dry up by burrowing into the mud and sealing themselves within a mucous-lined burrow. This is called aestivation. At this time, they breathe air through their swim bladder instead of through their gills, and they reduce their metabolic rate dramatically in order to last through the drought without having to eat. Strangely, these fish will even drown if they are kept underwater and are not allowed to breathe air!

Evidence suggests that in recent years only small numbers of young lungfish are growing-up into adult fish. In addition, changes to the quality and extent of breeding habitat are reducing the likelihood of successful spawning. Two of the key problems affecting the lungfish are the flooding of suitable spawning sites and physical barriers that block the adult lungfish from moving to the remaining breeding sites. While the waters of dams and weirs provide feeding habitat for the species, they rarely provide the shallow water and dense cover of water plants like ribbonweed which the lungfish need for successful spawning. In addition, dams and weirs do not provide suitable nursery habitat for the species as the young also require a cover of water plants.

Because of the long life span of the lungfish (with some research suggesting that the fish may live up to 100 years) the lack of breeding success may not become evident in the adult population for many years. It is estimated that there has been a 26 per cent loss or reduction in the amount of breeding and nursery habitat for the Lungfish. As a result, the adult breeding population is likely to decline substantianally within the next three generations. In addition, exotic and translocated native fishes, such as the exotic Tilapia (Oreochromis mossambica) are believed to prey on lungfish eggs and young and compete with adults for breeding habitat.

Red Panda

So, you've heard of that highly endangered bear species that's only found in Beijing. But, have you come accross with another species with the similar name that are also at the verge of extinction? The Red Panda is a shy, long-tailed mammal that lives in cold, high-altitude mountain forests in Nepal, Burma and central China. Also known as the Lesser Panda, it is the size of a house cat. This endangered species is more closely related to raccoons than to Giant Pandas. They are most active in the early morning and late afternoon spending most of the day resting in trees conserving their energy as their bamboo diet has a low energy content.

Although classed as a carnivore, their diets are mainly bamboo shoots, grass and fruit with the occasional egg, insect or small animals. In captivity Red Pandas can live up to 14 years but it is not known how long they live in the wild. They reach sexual maturity at around a year old.

Here are some interesting facts:

• The Chinese name for red panda is hunho or firefox, due to their colour and similar size to a fox.

• Like giant pandas, red pandas have an extra 'thumb' which is simply an enlarged bone.

• Claws are sharp and partly retractable.

• A red panda can consume up to 45 percent of its own body weight daily eating approximately 200,000 bamboo leaves daily.

• The origin of the name "panda" is the Nepalese word "nigalya ponya", which has the meaning of "eater of bamboo

• The red panda was first discovered in 1821, 48 years before the giant pandas were found in 1869.

Habitat destruction is the main threat to the red panda. China and Nepal have rapidly growing human populations and their need for timber, fuel and grazing land causes widespread losses of forested land that supports bamboo undergrowth. Even in national parks and reserves, livestock grazing and timber extraction are destroying bamboo at an alarming rate. Young pandas are killed by domestic and feral dogs, while poachers hunt them for the fur and pet trades. While bamboo flowerings, which cause large areas of bamboo to die, have been a cause of concern, man-made factors are a greater concern for the long-term survival of the species.

Christmas Island Red Crabs

Christmas Island Red Crabs - video powered by Metacafe


If you've heard of Christmas Island (an island in the Indian Ocean and part of Australia) where the climate is tropical and seems like a rainforest, then you've probably heard about the millions of land crabs that live there. Of the 14 species of land crabs on Christmas Island, the most noticeable is the red crab. Not all red crabs are red. There are the occasional orange ones and the rare purple crabs. An adult shell can grow to 11.6 cm (4.5 inches) across. Their claws are usually about the same size, although females have smaller claws than males. From claw tip to claw tip, these guys are about the size of a dinner plate.

If you have a fear of being surrounded by small animals like spiders or rats, Christmas Island in December is the place to overcome this fear. At the first rains of the wet season in December, about 120 million crabs come out of hiding and start heading towards the ocean. To get there, they have to pass through town, across roads, through jungles and down a cliff. People find crabs all over their lawns, on their driveways and even in their houses.

The crabs that survive the week long trip to the ocean dip themselves in the water and then head into the closest woods where they will mate with females. After mating, the females hang out in the woods for two weeks while the males make the same journey back to the forest. Two weeks later the females lay about 100,000 eggs each, in the water. After a month, baby crabs about the size of a fingernail come out of the water and start the same journey their parents made through town and into the forest.

There are so many baby crabs making the tripback to the forest, they look like a giant red blanket, except the blanket is moving quickly. The crabs travel more than 300 feet an hour trying to prevent dehydration in the scorching sun. Locals help them out by scooping up buckets full of crabs from roads and blocked drains. By sundown most of the babies have completed the treacherous journey. Three to four years later the crabs join the mass migration and keep doing it for the rest of their lives, about 10 years.

If you're a local, millions of crabs on your lawn, in your house and covering the roads wouldn't make you blink an eye. It's just something that happens every year. Surprisingly none of the Christmas Island residents want to get rid of the crabs. They actually consider it a privilege to witness or assist this great natural event. You might also think people would put a few in a pot for dinner. Not so. Red crabs aren't the kind of crabs you get at a seafood restaurant. Their meat are made up of 96% water and aren't edible.

Even if you can't eat them, it's definitely worth dropping by Christmas Island in December or January to watch a blanket of Red crabs migrate to the ocean and back - just be sure to wear boots.

In Memoriam of Steve Irwin (1962 - 2006)

Fourth of September. A grave day for the Irwin family. On this heart-renching day of year 2006, Steve Irwin, the "Crocodile Hunter" of Animal Planet had his heart pierced by a stingray and stung to his death. The famous and beloved Animal Planet Conversationist was trying to teach us about these amazing creatures when the tragic moment happened. It's rather unfortunate that there have only been 17 recorded stingray fatalities worldwide. Steve was the 18th.


Steve Irwin - video powered by Metacafe

The crocodile hunter was also owner of theAustralia Zoo. The zoo was opened by his parents back during 1970. It was called the the "Beerwah Reptile Park" then. Starting the park was a huge gamble and money was very, very scarce. Dad was the ultimate builder and innovator, Mum was brilliant at budgeting and thrift. So together the Irwin family worked long and hard to eke out an existence.

Steve grew up to be a boy of the crocs. If you have seen him on tv, he would most of the time feeding and playing with his crocodile mates, commenting "What a beauty!" now and then whenever he sees one. His love for animals doesn't stop there. Throughout furthur episodes, he can be seen tugging and hugging a wombat, irritating a venomous snake, kissing a tiger, and the list goes on.

It seems like yesterday Steve was filming another episode of his famous tv program. With one fatal stung, and now he is gone, forever. Though his body and soul has yet to be seen again, he will always be remembered in our hearts, as the beloved crocodile hunter.