The red-eyed tree frog is the native to the rain forests of Central America and as its name suggests, the red-eyed tree frog has red eyes with vertically narrowed pupils. Red-eyed tree frogs are scientifically known as Agalychnis callidryas and these are carnivores that eat crickets, moths, flies, and other insects.

Red-eyed tree frog of Central America – Image by Alberto Gómez Aparicio – flickr

These iconic rain-forest amphibians sleep by day stuck to leaf-bottoms with their eyes closed and body markings covered. When disturbed, they flash their bulging red eyes and reveal their huge, webbed orange feet and bright blue-and-yellow flanks. This technique, called startle coloration, may give a bird or snake pause, offering a precious instant for the frog to spring to safety.

The red-eyed tree frog: Agalychnis callidryas remained sticky to tree leaves all the day. Image: Inf-Lite Teacher

Adult red-eyed tree frog or  Agalychnis callidryas is only about 5 cm (2 inches) in length while the females tend to be larger at 7.5 cm (3 inches). Males croak and quiver, like a song and a dance, to try to attract females. These frogs change color according to their mood from dark green to a reddish-brown. The average life span of the red-eyed tree frog is almost five years.

The majestic Orangutan lives in the dark rainforests of Indonesia and Malaysia, and it is exclusively native to this part of the Asian continent. This intelligent species of ape is from the two big islands namely, Borneo and Sumatra. Orangutans like Gorillas and Chimpanzees are greatly similar to humans in terms of anatomy, physiology, and behavior. Orangutans spend their lives in trees where they make bontiful and lush nests. The body hair of the majestic Orangutan are reddish-brown and the males and females differ in size and appearance. Dominant adult males have distinctive cheek pads and produce long calls that attract females and intimidate rivals. Younger males do not have these features and resemble adult females. Orangutans mostly possess solitary existence, with social bonds occurring primarily between mothers and their dependent offspring, who stay together for the first two years.

A Bornean Orangutan – Image by Adam – flickr – Endangered

The name orangutan means “man of the forest” in the Malay language. Orangutans have an enormous arm span. A male may stretch his arms some 7 feet (2 meters) from fingertip to fingertip—a reach considerably longer than his standing height of about 5 feet (1.5 meters). When orangutans do stand, their hands nearly touch the ground. Orangutans have tremendous strength, which enables them to swing from branch to branch and hang upside-down from branches for long periods of time to retrieve fruit and eat young leaves.

A Sumatran Orangutan – Image by Heather Paul – Critically Endangered

The diet of this ape of Borneo and Sumatra mainly comes from the fruits and plantation. Over 400 food types have been documented as part of the orangutans’ diet, and although it consists mainly of fruit, in times of scarcity orangutans will shift their eating habits to lower quality food, such as bark, leaves & termites, rather than travel to a different area. Courtship lasts between 3-10 days and it is the female who, not wanting to share her food source, initiates the final separation. The male has no role in the raising of his offspring. It is thought that this solitary lifestyle evolved due to erratic fruiting, leading to competition for food. With a predominantly frugivorous diet, containing relatively few calories for such a large body size, the orangutan needs to forage for 60% of the day, with the other 40% spent sleeping and resting.

An Orangutam Mom with her 1 week old baby in the Sumatran Forest – Image by Paul Williams

Classified in the genus Pongo, orangutans were considered to be one species. However, since 1996, they have been divided into two species: the Bornean Orangutan (P. pygmaeus) and the Sumatran Orangutan (P. abelii). In addition, the Bornean species is divided into three subspecies.It’s estimated that there are fewer than 7,000 Sumatran Orangutans and 50,000 Bornean Orangutans living in the wild today. The Sumatran Orangutan is listed as critically endangered and the Bornean Orangutan as endangered.

Orangutans in a rainforest – An image by Rainforest Action Network – flickr

The habitats of the majestic Orangutan are disappearing at an alarming rate due to deforestation and clearing of the land for pulp paper and palm oil plantations, with the remaining forest degraded by drought and forest fires. The illegal logging, fires, extensive palm oil plantations, poaching and hunting are the serious threats to the lives of the remaining orangutans on the planet earth.

Habitat of Orangutans – An image of the nest of an Orangutan in a rainforest – Image By DrLianPinKoh – flickr

They are blatant and friendly; they are genius and communicative; we are telling you about the magnificent Chimpanzee which is an inspirational ape is native to the African continent. Apes are different from monkeys becase they don’t have tails. Chimpanzees are members of the Homonidae family and their scientific name is Pan troglodytes. Chimpanzee is sometimes colloquially called as chimp who has amazing similarities with the humans in many aspects; the most important is that the chimps share approximately 98% of their DNA with humans.

Chimpanzee or Chimp – An image by William Warby – flickr

The chimpanzee has a bulky body with long arms, short legs and no tail. Much of the body is covered with long black hair, but the face, ears, fingers and toes are bare. They have hands that can grip firmly, allowing them to pick up objects. The discovery that they used “tools” for certain purposes surprised the world. Chimpanzees are omnivores. They rely heavily on a wide variety fruit and leaves, but also eat insects, bark, eggs, nuts, and even hunt monkeys and other small animals for meat. Chimpanzees spend a large part of their day looking for food and eating, but they do not wander aimlessly through the forest hoping to bump into food.

Chimpanzee is enjoying the dinner – Image by cynicalview – flickr

Chimpanzees make tools and use them to acquire foods and for social displays; they have sophisticated hunting strategies requiring cooperation, influence and rank; they are status conscious, manipulative and capable of deception; they can learn to use symbols and understand aspects of human language including some relational syntax, concepts of number and numerical sequence; and they are capable of spontaneous planning for a future state or event. Chimps normally live in group formations that are normally called as troops, of some 30 to 80 individuals. These large groups are made up of smaller, very flexible groups of just a few animals, perhaps all females, all males or a mixed group.

A young chimp on the back of his mom – Image by yuki_alm_misa

Chimpanzees live in multi-male, multi-female communities. The females may mate with multiple males, and the males thus generally treat all offspring as if they were their own, since there is no way to know for sure. Females have a bright pink bottom that signals to males when they are fertile. A female chimp will usually have her first child at around the age of 14 years old. The gestation period is approximately 9 months, just like in humans. The infants are dependent upon their mother for at least 5 years, and can usually live independently by age 6, but still spend considerable time with their mothers even into adulthood. Chimps are considered adults by age 15. A female chimp will not be fertile again until her child is fully weaned, so at most a female chimp will give birth every five years. She may have approximately 4-6 children in her lifetime. Chimpanzees can live for more than 50 years.

Chimp family – Chimpanzees – Image by Maia C – flickr

Adult common chimpanzees, particularly males, can be very aggressive. They are highly territorial and are known to kill other chimps. Chimps are agile climbers, building nests high up in trees to rest in during midday and sleep in at night. They construct new nests in minutes by bending branches, intertwining them to form a platform and lining the edges with twigs. In some areas chimps make nests on the ground.The magnificent Chimpanzee or the Chimps are under threat; not long time ago they had a huge population, in fact in millions who used to wander in the jungles of more than 25 African countries. But now their population is dangerously reduced to only a few hundred thousands.

Chimpanzee’s nest Joey Verge

The main threats to the chimpanzee or chimps are habitat loss and hunting for bushmeat. Degradation of forests through logging, mining, farming, and other forms of land development is contributing to the decline of the population of Chimpanzee in Africa.

Amani Sunbird is a rare inborn bird of a very small and fragmanted forest range of Kenya and Tanzania. Amani Sunbird is scientifically known as Anthreptes pallidigaster and its original habitat is the Arabuko-Sokoke Forest in Kenya and in the East Usambara Mountains in Tanzania. The male Amani Sunbird has iridescent upperparts and head with belly, flanks and vent contrasting white. When agitated, shows red pectoral tufts. The female Amani Sunbird has overall greyish plumage. 

Amani Sunbird – A rare inborn of Kenya & Tanzania – image by Steve Garvie

Amani Sunbird, the rare inborn of Kenya and Tanzania is endangered species which has permanent threats to its remaining population due to the quick loss of its natural habitat. There is expeditive clearance of the forest reserves for the cultivation, excessive pole-cutting, and pit-sawing that are resulting into the accelerated habitat destruction of the Amani Sunbird.

In the great plains and vast grasslands of Americas, the American Bisons once wandered in form of massive flocks. They were millions in number till the eighteenth century, but during the nineteenth century these spectacular American buffaloes faced a brutal butchery and extermination and their population was reduced to 1,091 in 1889. But thanks to some of their protected areas and national parks, their population is now increased up to 500,000; although they are completely extinct from their original homelands.  The American Bison is a herbivore and this spectacular American buffalo feeds on the grasses of the prairie land and roams in search of water bodies all year round.

American Bison – A spectacular American buffalo – Image by Dan Dzurisin

American Bison is a mighty mammal with splendid appearance with dark chestnut brown hair. They have longer, darker hair around their head, shoulders, and chest. They have a pair of upward-curved horns and a large shoulder hump. Male bison is slightly larger than the females but both the male and female have an extraordinary large head and a scraggly beard. Historically, the American bison was a traveller of the long distances accross America in order to graze themselves in open or semi-open grasslands, semi-arid lands and scrublands.

American Buffalo or Bison on the Yellowstone Prairie – Devin Westhause

The average length of the American bison is about 7-11 feet and it weighs almost 770-2200 pounds. This spectacular American buffalo is naturally a migratory mammal and herd migrations can be directional as well as altitudinal in some areas.

The female American Bison along with her calf – Image by dbarronoss

The American Bison reaches sexual maturity between the ages of 2 and 3 years. Usually the American Bison breeds from June to September and the females can give birth to one calf per year and provide sole care for their young. Males do not protect or care for the calf. Newborn calves have a reddish, light brown coat and lack the distinctive hump of the adult bison. They begin turning brown and developing the hump after a few months.

The-herd-of-the-American-Bison-A-natural-way-of-roaming-around – Image by Becky Gregory

The American Bison Bison bison have poor eyesight, but have acute hearing and an excellent sense of smell. They will generally rest during the day and graze in the mornings and evenings.  They can reach speeds of up to 35 mph.The American bison is often used in North America in official seals, flags, and logos.