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.