The Green Bee-Eater

The Green Bee-eater, Merops orientalis, (sometimes Little Green Bee-eater) is a near passerine bird in the bee-eater family. It is resident but prone to seasonal movements and is found widely distributed across sub-Saharan Africa from Senegal and The Gambia to Ethiopia, the Nile valley, western Arabia and Asia through India to Vietnam. They are mainly insect eaters and they are found in grassland, thin scrub and forest often quite far from water. Several regional plumage variations are known and several subspecies have been named.

Like other bee-eaters, this species is a richly coloured, slender bird. It is about 9 inches (16–18 cm) long with about 2 inches made up by the elongated central tail-feathers. The sexes are not visually distinguishable. The entire plumage is bright green and tinged with blue especially on the chin and throat. The crown and upper back are tinged with golden rufous. The flight feathers are rufous washed with green and tipped with blackish.

A fine black line runs in front of and behind the eye. The iris is crimson and the bill is black while the legs are dark grey. The feet are weak with the three toes joined at the base. Southeast Asian birds have rufous crown and face, and green underparts, whereas Arabian beludschicus has a green crown, blue face and bluish underparts. The wings are green and the beak is black. The elongated tail feathers are absent in juveniles. Sexes are alike.

This is an abundant and fairly tame bird, familiar throughout its range. It is a bird which breeds in open country with bushes. In Africa and Arabia it is found in arid areas, but is more diverse in its habitats further east. This species often hunts from low perches, maybe only a metre or less high. It readily makes use of fence wires and electric wires. Unlike some other bee-eaters, they can be found well away from water.

They are mostly see in the plains but can sometimes be found up to 5000 or 6000 feet in the Himalayas. They are resident in the lowlands of South Asia but some populations move seasonally but the patterns are unclear moving away to drier regions in the rainy season and to warmer regions in winter. In parts of Pakistan, they are summer visitors.

Like other species in the genus, bee-eaters predominantly eat insects, especially bees, wasps and ants, which are caught in the air by sorties from an open perch. Before swallowing prey, a bee-eater removes stings and breaks the exoskeleton of the prey by repeatedly thrashing it on the perch.

The Markhor

Markhor is a large species of wild goat that is found in northeastern Afghanistan, Pakistan (Gilgit-Baltistan, Hunza-Nagar Valley, northern and central Pakistan, and some parts of Jammu and Kashmir), India, southern Tajikistan and southern Uzbekistan. The species is classed by the IUCN as Endangered, as there are fewer than 2,500 mature individuals which continued to decline by an estimated 20% over 2 generations. The Markhor is the National Animal of Pakistan.

Markhor stand 65 to 115 centimetres (26 to 45 in) at the shoulder, 132 to 186 centimetres (52 to 73 in) in length and weigh from 32 to 110 kilograms (71 to 240 lb). It has the highest maximum shoulder height among the species in the genus Capra, but is surpassed in length and weight by the Siberian Ibex. The coat is of a grizzled, light brown to black colour, and is smooth and short in summer, while growing longer and thicker in winter. The fur of the lower legs is black and white. Markhor are sexually dimorphic, with males having longer hair on the chin, throat, chest and shanks.

Females are redder in colour, with shorter hair, a short black beard, and are maneless. Both sexes have tightly curled, corkscrew-like horns which close together at the head, but spread upwards toward the tips. The horns of males can grow up to 160 cm (64 inches) long, and up to 25 cm (10 inches) in females. They have a pungent smell, which surpasses that of the domestic goat.

Markhor are adapted to mountainous terrain, and can be found between 600–3,600 meters in elevation. They typically inhabit scrub forests made up primarily of oaks (Quercus ilex), pines (Pinus gerardiana), and junipers (Juniperus macropoda). Markhor are diurnal, and are mainly active in the early morning and late afternoon. Their diet shifts seasonally: in the spring and summer periods they graze, but turn to browsing in winter, sometimes standing on their hind legs to reach high branches.

The mating season takes place in winter, during which, the males fight each other by lunging, locking horns and attempt to push each other off balance. The gestation period lasts 135–170 days, and usually result in the birth of one or two kids, though rarely three. Markhor live in flocks, usually numbering nine animals, composed of adult females and their young. Adult males are largely solitary. Their alarm call closely resembles the bleating of domestic goats. Early in the season the males and females may be found together on the open grassy patches and clear slopes among the forest. During the summer, the males remain in the forest, while the females generally climb to the highest rocky ridges above.

Certain authors have postulated that the markhor is the ancestor of some breeds of domestic goat. Charles Darwin postulated that modern goats arose from crossbreeding markhor with wild goats. Other authors have put forth the possibility of markhor being the ancestor of some Egyptian goat breeds, due to their similar horns, though the lack of an anterior keel on the horns of the markhor belie any close relationship. Changthangi domestic goat of Ladakh and Tibet may derive from the markhor. Girgentana Goat of Sicily is thought to have been bred from Markhor, as is the Bilberry goat of Ireland. The Kashmiri feral herd of about 200 individuals on the Great Orme limestone headland of Wales are derived from a herd maintained at Windsor Great Park belonging to Queen Victoria.

The Stellers Sea Cow

Steller's sea cow (Hydrodamalis gigas) was a ample herbivorous abyssal mammal. In actual times, it was the better affiliate of the adjustment Sirenia, which includes its abutting active relative, the dugong (Dugong dugon), and the manatees (Trichechus spp.). Aforetime abounding throughout the North Pacific, its ambit was bound to a single, abandoned citizenry on the arid Commander Islands by 1741 back it was ancient declared by Georg Wilhelm Steller, arch naturalist on an campaign led by charlatan Vitus Bering. Within 27 years of analysis by Europeans, the apathetic affective and calmly captured Steller's sea cow was bolter to extinction.

The sea cow grew to at atomic 8 meters (26 ft) to 9 meters (30 ft) in breadth as an adult, abundant beyond than the manatee or dugong; however, apropos their weight, Steller's assignment contains two adverse estimates: 4 and 24.3 metric tons. The accurate amount is estimated to lie amid these figures, at about 8 to 10 ft. It looked somewhat like a ample seal, but had two stout forelimbs and a whale-like appendage and the fluke. According to Steller, "The beastly never comes out on shore, but consistently lives in the water. Its case is atramentous and thick, like the case of an old oak…, its arch in admeasurement to the anatomy is small…, it has no teeth, but alone two collapsed white bones—one above, the added below". It was absolutely tame, according to Steller. They fed on a array of kelp. Wherever sea beasts had been feeding, abundance of stalks and roots of kelp were done ashore. The sea cow was additionally a apathetic swimmer and allegedly was clumsy to submerge.

The citizenry of sea beasts was baby and bound in ambit back Steller ancient declared them. Steller said they were abundant and begin in herds, but zoologist Leonhard Hess Stejneger afterwards estimated that at analysis there had been beneath than 1,500 remaining, and appropriately had been in actual crisis of afterlife from overhunting by humans. They were bound wiped out by the sailors, allowance hunters, and fur traders that followed Bering's avenue accomplished the islands to Alaska, who bolter them both for aliment and for their skins, which were acclimated to accomplish boats. They were additionally bolter for their admired subcutaneous fat, which was not alone acclimated for aliment (usually as a adulate substitute), but additionally for oil lamps because it did not accord off any smoke or odor and could be kept for a continued time in balmy acclimate afterwards spoiling. By 1768, 27 years afterwards it had been apparent by Europeans, Steller's sea cow was extinct.

Fossils announce that Steller's sea cow was aforetime boundless forth the North Pacific coast, extensive south to Japan and California. Given the acceleration with which its aftermost citizenry was eliminated, it is acceptable that ancient hunting acquired its afterlife over the blow of its ancient ambit (aboriginal peoples allegedly never inhabited the Commander Islands).

It has been argued that the sea cow's abatement may accept additionally been an aberrant acknowledgment to the autumn of sea otters by ancient bodies from the civil areas. With the otters reduced, the citizenry of sea urchins would accept added and bargain availability of kelp, the sea cow's primary antecedent of food. Thus, ancient hunting of both breed may accept contributed to the sea cow's dematerialization from continental shorelines. However, in celebrated times ancient hunting had depleted sea otter populations alone in localized areas. The sea cow would accept been attainable casualty for ancient hunters, who would acceptable accept abolished attainable populations with or afterwards accompanying otter hunting. In any event, the sea cow was bound to littoral areas off islands afterwards a animal citizenry by the time Bering arrived, and was already endangered.

The Liger

The liger is a hybrid cross between a male lion (Panthera leo) and a tigress (Panthera tigris). Thus, it has parents with the same genus but of different species. It is distinct from the similar hybrid tiglon. It is the largest of all known cats and extant felines.

Ligers enjoy swimming, which is a characteristic of tigers, and are very sociable like lions. Ligers exist only in captivity because the habitats of the parental species do not overlap in the wild. Historically, when the Asiatic Lion was prolific the territories of lions and tigers did overlap and there are legends of ligers existing in the wild. Notably, ligers typically grow larger than either parent species, unlike tiglons which tend to be about as large a female tiger.

The history of ligers dates to at least the early 19th century in, India Asia. In 1798, Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1772–1844) made a colour plate of the offspring of a lion and a tiger.

In 1825, G.B. Whittaker made an engraving of liger cubs born in 1824. parents and their three liger offspring are also depicted with their trainer in a 19th Century painting in the naïve style.

Two liger cubs which had been born in 1837 were exhibited to William IV and to his successor Victoria. On 14 December 1900 and on 31 May 1901, Carl Hagenbeck wrote to zoologist James Cossar Ewart with details and photographs of ligers born at the Hagenbeck's Tierpark in Hamburg in 1897.
In 1935, four ligers from two litters were reared in the Zoological Gardens of Bloemfontein, South Africa. Three of them, a male and two females, were still living in 1953. The male weighed 340 kg (750 lb) and stood a foot and a half (45 cm) taller than a full grown male lion at the shoulder.

Although ligers are more commonly found than tiglons today, in At Home In The Zoo (1961), Gerald Iles wrote "For the record I must say that I have never seen a liger, a hybrid obtained by crossing a lion with a tigress. They seem to be even rarer than tigons."

The liger is the largest known cat in the world. Imprinted genes may be a factor contributing to huge liger size. These are genes that may or may not be expressed on the parent they are inherited from, and that occasionally play a role in issues of hybrid growth. For example, in some dog breed crosses, genes that are expressed only when maternally-inherited cause the young to grow larger than is typical for either parent breed. This growth is not seen in the paternal breeds, as such genes are normally "counteracted" by genes inherited from the female of the appropriate breed.
Other big cat hybrids can reach similar sizes; the litigon, a rare hybrid of a male lion and a female tiglon, is roughly the same size as the liger, with a male named Cubanacan (at the Alipore Zoo in India) reaching 363 kg (800 lb). The extreme rarity of these second-generation hybrids may make it difficult to ascertain whether they are larger or smaller, on average, than the liger.

It is erroneously believed that ligers continue to grow throughout their lives due to hormonal issues. It may be that they simply grow far more during their growing years and take longer to reach their full adult size. Further growth in shoulder height and body length is not seen in ligers over 6 years old, same as both lions and tigers. Male ligers also have the same levels of testosterone on average as an adult male lion, yet are azoospermic in accordance with Haldane's rule. In addition, female ligers may also attain great size, weighing approximately 320 kg (705 lb) and reaching 3.05 m (10 ft) long on average, and are often fertile. In contrast, pumapards (hybrids between pumas and leopards) tend to exhibit dwarfism.