Where do most of the birds on Earth live?
Scientists think that there are about 9,500 species of birds in the world.
Birds are classified into 23 orders, such as passerines (song birds), accipters (eagles and hawks, for example), galliformes (game birds), and strigiformes (owls) etc.
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The Azara’s Agouti (Dasyprocta azarae) is a rodent mammal in the Dasyproctidae family.
The Azara’s Agouti is native to South America, in countries such as Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina. It prefers rainforests.
Continue reading “Why is the Azara’s Agouti known as the Jungle Gardener?”
The Goliath Birdeater Spider (Theraphosa blondi) is an arachnid in the Theraphosidae family of tarantula spiders. It is also called the Goliath Bird-Eating Spider.
The Goliath Birdeater Spider is light brown to golden-coloured, and hairy with eight long legs.
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The White-Headed Pigeon (Columba leucomela) is a medium-sized bird in the Columbidae family of pigeons.
The White-Headed Pigeon is plump with a short neck. It has a white head and chest with a glossy back area. Its wings and tail are black. Its beak is red with a yellowish tip. It has a red eye-ring with pale orange or yellow eyes. Its legs are red.
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What is a rain forest?
There are tropical rain forests with high temperatures, which are often called jungles. Tropical rain forests occur along the equator.
There are temperate rain forests, with warm temperatures in summer and cool temperatures in winter.
A rain forest has high, continuous rainfall, which provides water and oxygen for many species of plants and animals.
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The Great Green Macaw (Ara ambiguous) is a large bird in the parrot family. It is also known as the Buffon’s Macaw or the Great Military Macaw. It is related to the Scarlet Macaw, the Military Macaw, and the Blue-and-Yellow Macaw.
The Great Green Macaw has mainly green feathers and a reddish forehead, with a pale-blue lower back, rump and upper tail feathers. Its tail is brownish-red tipped with very pale blue. Its bare, featherless facial skin is patterned with lines of short spikes, which are reddish in older parrots and female parrots. It has bluish eyes with a white eye-ring. It has a large, strong grey beak.
The Scarlet Macaw, like other parrots, has its first and fourth toes pointing backwards.
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The Green Tree Python (Morelia viridis) is a non-venomous reptile and snake.
The Green Tree Python is bright green with a slim body and a large head. Its snout (nose) is large and angular. It has large eyes with vertical pupils. It has a long tail. There are small white or yellowish scales dotted over its ridged spine. Its underbelly is yellowish.
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The Red-Faced Black Spider Monkey (Ateles paniscus paniscus) is a mammal. It is also known as the Guiana Spider Monkeyor Red-Faced Spider Monkey.
The Red-Faced Black Spider Monkey has long, black hair and a red-pinkish bare face. It has a long, prehensile tail that can grasp tree branches. It has long limbs and long fingers.
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The Amazon Butterfly (Coenophlebia archidona) is an insect in the Nymphalidae family of butterflies.
The Amazon Butterfly has orange-brown wings with black-brown tips on the fore (front) wings. It looks like a leaf, so it is well-camouflaged. The front wings have a hook shape.
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The Montrouzier’s Ulysses Butterfly (Papilio montrouzieri) is a large insect in the family of swallowtail butterflies.
The Montrouzier’s Ulysses Butterfly has iridescent electric blue wings with brown-black edges. It has forked hind (back) wings. Its underside is brown-black. The female has crescent-shaped blue markings on her hind wings. Its body is brown-black with long antennae.
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The Azara’s Agouti (Dasyprocta azarae) is a rodent mammal.
The Azara’s Agouti is a stout brown-furred animal, with a russet-yellow rump. It has pink ears and a pink nose with a white chin. It has dark eyes. Its front feet are grey-black with four toes, and its back feet have three toes. It has a small tail.
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Rainfall is called precipitation. Rain is freshwater, not saltwater.
Precipitation includes rain, drizzle, sleet, snow, graupel, and hail. It is water vapour that condenses and falls to earth. (Mist and fog are not precipitation because they do not fall; the moisture remains in a cloud near the ground).
A little bit of very small drops of rain that falls very gently is called drizzle.
A little bit of rain that falls steadily is called a rain shower.
Rain with small ice pellets is called sleet.
Rain with heavy and large ice pellets is called hail.
Continue reading “Rainfall Patterns: how much is too much rain?”
The Glasswing Butterfly (Greta oto) is an insect in the Danainae sub-family of brush-footed butterflies.
The Glasswing Butterfly has transparent wings that enable it to camouflage without the use of colour – which is very rare among butterflies. Its wings have dark-brown borders tinted with red or orange. Its body is dark-brown.
The Vietnamese Mossy Frog (Theloderma corticale) is an amphibian.
The Vietnamese Mossy Frog has mottled brown and green skin that looks like moss growing on a rock. It has large sticky pads on its toes. It has a pale belly.
The Idomeneus Owl Butterfly (Caligo idomeneus) is a large butterfly. It is an insect.
The Idomeneus Owl Butterfly is a range of brown colours with various spots. It has a large eye-looking spot on each of its hind wings (back wings) that resemble owl’s eyes. These are called eyespots. The purpose of the eyespots could be to deter predators.
What is a montane ecosystem?
A montane ecosystem is a mountain area between the lower timberline (lower tree line) and the timberline (tree line), with soil temperatures approximately between 6-12 degrees Celsius (43-54 Fahrenheit).
In the montane region, there can be dense forests and high winds. There are different forest types, depending on the location in the world.
Temperate montane forests occur in Europe (e.g. the Alps, Carpathians, and the Caucasus Mountains), North America (e.g. Cascade Range and Appalachians), South America, New Zealand, and Himalaya.
The Mt Kenya Bush Viper (Atheris desaixi) is a venomous snake, found in Kenya.
The Mt Kenya Bush Viper is greenish-black and yellow, with each scale speckled with yellow or yellowish-green spots. It has a bright yellow chin.
The Malaysian Sun Bear (Helarctos malayanus) is the smallest of the world’s eight types of bears. It is shy and is found in the tropical rainforests of the Malay Peninsula in Malaysia.
It has black fur, and is called Sun Bear because it has a yellow crest on its chest. It has small ears and a short nose.
It is an omnivorous mammal, and can grow to 1.2 metres (4 feet) tall.
The Bolivian Squirrel Monkey (Saimiri boliviensis) is a primate mammal from the rainforests of Central and South America.
The Bolivian Squirrel Monkey has short fur that looks yellowish, with a black head, white throat and ears, and black around their mouth. Sometimes they are called Death’s Head Monkey. It is also known as the Black-Capped Squirrel Monkey.
It can grow to 35 centimetres (13 inches) long, with a 42 centimetre (16 inch) tail.
The Taiwan Beauty Rat Snake (Orthriophis taeniurus friesi, previously Elaphe taeniura friesi) is also called the Taiwan Beauty Snake or Cave Racer.
The Taiwan Beauty Rat Snake is yellow-brown to olive in colour with black markings. It has a black stripe on its head that runs across its eye.
It is a semi-arboreal snake that likes rainforests. It is cathemeral, which means that it is active at random times during the day or night, instead of nocturnal (active at night) or diurnal (active during the day).