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CREATURE FEATURE: Gouldian Finch

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The Gouldian Finch (Erythura gouldiaeor Chloebia goldiae) is a small passerine bird in the Estrildidae family. It is an estrildid. It is also known as the Gould Finch or the Rainbow Finch. 

The Gouldian Finch is brightly coloured and varied, with mainly black, green, yellow, and red markings. The male has a purple chest and the female has a light mauve chest. Its head is red, black, or yellow. Its beak is light-coloured with a red tip. It has pale legs and feet. 

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Rook

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The Rook (Corvus frugilegus) is a large bird in the Corvus family of crows. It is a corvid.

The Rook has shiny, black feathers with a whitish, featherless area on its face. It has black, shaggy feathers on its legs. Its feet are also black. Its eyes are brown. Its large beak is grey-black.

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Blacktip Reef Shark

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The Blacktip Reef Shark (Carcharhinus melanopterus) is a marine (saltwater) requiem shark in the Carcharhinidae family. It is an elasmobranch cartilaginous fish—a fish that does not have a bony skeleton. 

The Blacktip Reef Shark is slim and grey, with black tips on its dorsal (back) and caudal (tail) fins. It has a wide, rounded snout (nose) and large, oval-shaped eyes. It has 11-13 rows of sharp triangular-shaped teeth on the upper jaw and 10-12 rows on the lower jaw.

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Blue Masked Lovebird

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The Blue Masked Lovebird (Agapornis personata personata var.) is a small bird in the Psittacidae family of lovebird parrots. It is also known as the Blue Lovebird. It is a colour mutation of the Yellow-Collared Lovebird (Agapornis personatus), which is also called the Masked Lovebird. 

The Blue Masked Lovebird has a black head, blue body, and a white collar around its neck. It is white on its upper chest. The color occurs naturally in the wild. It has a wide white eye-ring around its eyes. Its beak is pinkish. 

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Chacoan Peccary

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The Chacoan Peccary (Catagonus wagneri) is an ungulate (hoofed) mammal.

The Chacoan Peccary has a rounded body with a large head, long snout (nose) and short legs – similar to a wild pig. Its nose looks like a pig’s nose. It has grey or brown bristly fur. It has longer, darker hair along its spine, and white fur on its shoulders. It has white hairs around its mouth. It has a third hind (back) toe.

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What is the difference between the European Wasp and the European Paper Wasp?

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What is the difference between the European Wasp (Vespula vulgaris) and the European Paper Wasp (Polistes dominula)?

The European Wasp, also called the Common Wasp, and the European Paper Wasp are both vespid insects.

The European Wasp and the European Paper Wasp are both social wasps living in colonies with a queen wasp and worker wasps.

The European Wasp and the European Paper Wasp both have black and yellow bodies with yellowish-orange legs.

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European Paper Wasp

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The European Paper Wasp (Polistes dominula) is a hymenopteran insect, a winged insect related to bees, wasps, and hornets. It is a vespid and a polist wasp in the Polistini tribe. It is a social wasp. It is also known as the Common Poet. 

The European Paper Wasp has a slender yellow and black body and long yellowish-orange legs. It drags its legs behind it when it is flying, because its legs are long. Its narrow wings are orange with dark tips. It has large eyes. Its antennae are yellowish-orange with club-shaped tips. 

It has a venomous stinger at the end of its abdomen. It can sting multiple times because the stinger stays in the body (the stinger of bees comes out of the body when the bee stings an animal, so it can only sting once). 

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Fallacy: All Bees Live in Hives

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A fallacy is something that is not true.

All bees live in hives is a fallacy.

Do all bees live in hives? No, not all bees live in hives. There are social bees and solitary bees.

A colony of bees—many thousands of bees—are social bees that live together in a hive. The Bumblebee and the Honeybee (or Honey Bee) are social bees, living in colonies, and living in hives.

However, solitary bees do not live in hives. 

Most bee species are, in fact, solitary bees.

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House Sparrow

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The House Sparrow (Passer domesticus domesticus) is a small bird in the Passeridae family of sparrows.

The House Sparrow has black, white, and brown feathers, with grey underparts. The female has more grey feathers on her back than the male. The male has a dark-grey crown and a black patch on its throat. The female has no black markings or dark-grey crown. It has a short, thick greyish-black beak. Its tail is short. 

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Geoffrey’s Tufted-Ear Marmoset

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The Geoffrey’s Tufted-Ear Marmoset (Callithrix geoffroyi) is a small arboreal primate mammal in the Callitrichidae family of monkeys. It is also known as the White-Headed Marmoset. It is closely related to the Goeldi’s Monkey, also known as the Goeldi’s Marmoset (Callimico goeldii).

The Geoffrey’s Tufted-Ear Marmoset has long grey, black, and russet-brown-to-orange fur. It has white fur surrounding its face. Its face is small, with bare pink skin and small brownish-orange eyes. It has claws, not nails. It has a long tail.

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Red-Bellied Lemur

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The Red-Bellied Lemur (Eulemur rubriventer) is a medium-sized strepshirrhine mammal. It is quadrupedal and arboreal – moving on four limbs and living in trees. 

The Red-Bellied Lemur has thick chestnut-brown fur, with lighter and redder fur on its belly. Its tail, nose and head are black. It has patches of white skin below the eyes, which look like teardrops (the male has more pronounced teardrops). The female has more creamy-white patches of fur.

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Golden Lion Tamarin

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The Golden Lion Tamarin (Leontopithecus rosalia) is an endangered mammal in the Callitrichidae family of small monkeys. It is also known as the Golden Marmoset. 

The Golden Lion Tamarin has bright reddish-orange fur with a mane around its face and ears. Its face is dark and hairless. It has elongated hands and fingers, with claw-like nails which enable it to cling to tree trunks. 

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New Caledonia Flying Fox

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The New Caledonia Flying Fox (Pteropus vetulus) is a bat, and a mammal, in the Pteropodidae family. Ptero means winged. It is not a fox.

The New Caledonian Flying Fox has long, silky brownish-red fur. It does not have a tail. Its head looks like the head of a small fox. It has long pointed ears, large eyes, and a small grey nose. It has long, black, clawed fingers, and large black wings. 

Its wings are flexible and look like a human’s hand, except that the digits (fingers) are longer and bats have a thin membrane of skin, called the patagium, between the fingers. These features enable the bat to move in the air and to change direction quickly. 

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What are the similarities between the Alpaca, the Llama, and the Vicuna?

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What are the similarities between the Alpaca (Vicugna pacos), the Llama (Lama glama), and the Vicuna (Vicugna vicugna)? 

The Alpaca, the Llama, and the Vicuna are all ungulate (hoofed) camelid mammals. They are related to the Camel.

The Alpaca, the Llama, and the Vicuna have soft sheep-like wool. The Alpaca has the second softest wool and the Vicuna has the softest wool.

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