The Bewick’s Tundra Swan (Cygnus bewickii) is a bird in the Anatidae family of swans. It is a smaller Eurasian waterfowl than the Mute Swan.
It is white with a yellow and black beak, a yellow eye-ring, and a rounded head. It has dark-grey legs.
The Bewick’s Tundra Swan can grow to 115-140 centimetres (45-55 inches) tall.
It lives in Europe and into southern Russia and China. It is a migratory bird, flying to warmer climates in winter in a V-formation flock.
The White-Bellied Go-Away Bird (Corythaixoides leucogaster) is from east Africa. It is in the turaco bird family and may be related to cuckoos.
It was given the name, Go-Away Bird, because it sounds like it is calling “go-away.”
It has a grey head, a long black crest which can be raised or lowered, grey neck and back. Its stomach is grey on top and white below with a clear line of demarcation. It has rows of black bars on its wings.
What is pelage and pelt?
Pelage is the collective term for hair, fur, wool or other soft covering of a mammal. It is the complete coat.
Pelt is the skin of an animal, with the hair or wool or fur still attached, which has been processed into leather.
The Barn Swallow (Hirundo rustica) is the most common and abundant swallow in the world. It is a small migratory songbird (a passerine). It often heralds the spring weather.
The Barn Swallow, or Eurasian Swallow (Hirundo rustica rustica) is found in the Northern Hemisphere, in Europe and Asia. It is dark iridescent blue with a rufous (reddish-brown) forehead, chin and throat, white underbelly, and black wings and tail. It has a deeply forked tail with large white spots.
The East African Nile Crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus afrocanus) is a reptile in the Crocodylidae family and the Crocodilia order. It is the largest freshwater predator in Africa, and the second largest reptile in the world, second to the Saltwater Crocodile (Crocodylus porosus). It is a crocodilian.
The East African Nile Crocodile is dark brown with faded blackish spots and stripes across its back, with a dirty-yellow belly. The colour darkens with age. It has four short legs, a long powerful tail, and a long snout with sharp teeth. They have thick scaly skin.
It has green eyes. Its nostrils, eyes and ears are on the top of the head, so that they can be seen out of the water when the rest of the body is underwater.
The East African Nile Crocodile has 64-68 sharp, pointy, cone-shaped teeth. It it loses a tooth, it can be replaced. On each side of the mouth, there are five teeth in the front of the upper jaw (premaxilla), 13 or 14 in the rest of the upper jaw (maxilla), and 14 or 15 on either side of the lower jaw (mandible).
Every year thousands of wildebeest drown or are eaten by crocodiles when they cross Kenya’s Mara river during their annual migration.
The mass annual journey of 1.2 million wildebeest (also known as gnus) from the Serengeti in Tanzania to the Mara in Kenya in Africa is the largest mammal migration in the world, and certainly the largest annual mass drowning of wildebeest.
Amanda Subalusky at Yale University has measured the nutrients released into the river ecosystem from the 1100 tonnes of biomass from about 6,200 wildebeest carcasses (dead bodies) that float downstream in the Mara river each year. That includes 100 tonnes of carbon, 25 tonnes of nitrogen and 13 tonnes of phosphorus.
Subalusky says that crocodiles and birds benefit from the carrion (decomposing bodies), particularly vultures. But the slow release of nutrients benefits everything in the river from fish to insects.
Continue reading “RESEARCH: Kenya’s wildebeest migration is good for the ecosystem”
Animals sleep. Some animals sleep at night, some animals sleep during the day, and some animals sleep in cold climates.
Animals that are diurnal are active mainly during the day and sleep at night.
Animals that are nocturnal are active mainly at night and sleep during the day.
Animals that are active mainly at dawn and dusk are crepuscular. They sleep during the day and during the night.