Wednesday, March 21, 2007

 

River Otter

Long, slender, sleek body, weighing approximately 20 pounds (9 kg) and about two and a half feet (76 cm) long. Head is small and round, with small eyes and ears; prominent whiskers. Legs short, but powerful; all four feet webbed. Tail long and slightly tapered toward the tip with musk-producing glands underneath. The short dense fur is dark brown. Chin and stomach are reddish yellow, tinged with gray. Females are a third smaller than males.Fish, crayfish, frogs, turtles, and aquatic invertebrates, plus an occasional bird, rodent or rabbit. Because otters prey most easily on fish that are slow and lethargic, much of the diet consists of "rough" fish like carp, suckers, catfish, and sculpins. Zoo diet: fish or horsemeat with vegetables. Feline diet with fish three times a week and vitamin E twice a week.

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

 

Hottentot Teal

Male has a black crown contrasting with a buffy white face and throat with a blackish "thumbprint" at the ear. Back and sides of neck, breast spotted with black. Tawny buff flanks and abdomen. Back, rump and tail dark brown to black. upper tail covers vermiculated with black. Upper wing surface mostly dark brown to black. The secondaries form an iridescent green speculum. Feet and bill are bluish gray. Females have browner crowns and less contrasting facial markings. A very small duck averaging only 12 to 14 inches in length.
An African species ranging from Angola, Zambia and the eastern Congo to Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia, south nearly to the Cape. Also resident in Madagascar. Live in shallow fresh water marshes and ponds with fringed edges of reeds and floating leaf plants.
Diet:
Grass seeds, water insects and insect larvae. They forage by dabbling, not diving.

Saturday, March 10, 2007

 

Toucan

Bill is bicolored with most of the upper mandible yellow, lower mandible and wedge-shaped area at base of upper mandible dark maroon-chestnut. Plumage is mostly black; rump white, under tail-coverts red, bare skin around eye yellowish green. Call is an almost gull-like repeated yelping ‘kee-yoo, tedick-tedick-tedick’.
Humid forest edge. Lowlands to 2000 meters in Central and nw South America (Honduras to western Equador).
Toucans are gregarious birds, usually seen in small flocks of 3 to 12 birds. Breeding is during the dry season. They nest in tree hollows. Incubation of the two to four eggs by both sexes lasts around 15 days. Young have particularly well-developed heel pads for shuffling about in the hard nest. These are lost by fledging at 40-50 days.
Their enormously enlarged bills which are used for plucking and manipulating tree fruits are lighter and less awkward than they look since they are largely hollow. The bill is strengthened by a honeycomb network of bony fibres within the horny outer sheath.

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