One of Earth's Exotic Animals Explored #10

      ONE OF THE RAREST CRITICALLY ENDANGERED                                 MAMMALS IN THE WORLD 

The Creature 
Is known as the Northern hairy - Nosed Wombat. These creatures use their enormous paws to dig into the ground to make their barrows. The wombat uses their whiskers to navigate throw their barrows narrow tunnels. The wombat furs are a brownish gray color that is relatively short haired creatures.
Wombats typically go out and explore at night, they vary rarely go out and explore during the day time.

Habitat.
The Wombats lives in barrows, that they create themselves.
There are about 115 northern hairy-nosed wombats left in the wild. They all live in Epping Forest National Park in Queensland, Australia.

Food
Their diet consists mainly of various types of grasses found throughout the wild.

Interesting Facts
-one of the three species of wombat
-largest herbivorous borrowing animal
-the males and females look identical except that the males are shorter in length but thicker necks and stockier shoulders.
-out of all the mammal the wombat uses the less amount of energy and consumes the less water out of all the mammals.

Sources
http://www.arkive.org/northern-hairy-nosed-wombat/lasiorhinus-krefftii/

One of Earth's Exotic Animals Explored #9

Have You Ever Stopped and Thought About a Creature that Looks Similar to a Rolly Polly?

The Creature
The creature is Known as a Giant Isopod. They range form 7.5-14.2 feet long. The Isopods are a brown grayish color. They look like big Alien bugs from a horror movie that wants to eat you. The creature can walk on land or swim in water but they prefer to stay in the ocean near the depths. When they feel threatened they will curl up in a ball such as a fetal position.
Habitat
These creatures live in the Pacific Ocean near Japan and near South China Sea. The depth they live at is around 550-7020 feet deep. The Isopods enjoy a muddy or clay like surface and prefer the colder waters.
Food
These big ugly looking guys are carnivores and tend to scavenge around the ocean looking for something dead to eat. So if you look dead the chances of them eating you are pretty high. They also eat living animals that are super slow like sponges and trawl catches.

Interesting Facts
-The reason why these creatures grow so big is from the term deep sea gigantism. It allows fish in larger bodies of water like the ocean grow to substantial size compared to the shallower water relatives.
- These creatures are not even similar to bugs they are more similar to shrimp and crabs known as crustaceans.
-The Isopods can go a long time without eating, one Isopod was kept in Japan without eating one bite.
Sources
http://www.boredpanda.com/unusual-animals/
http://mentalfloss.com/article/56278/18-awesome-facts-about-giant-isopod

One of Earth's Exotic Animals Explored #8

Exotic Jellied Animal in the DEEP DEEP Dark Blue Sea

The Creature

This creature is typically known as the Sea Pig. But the scientific name is Scotoplanes. The Sea Pig is in the family of Elpidiidae. It grows up to about 6 inches/15 cm long. Known as sea pigs are in fact a type of sea cucumber. Sea cucumbers are echinoderms, a group of marine animals that includes sea urchins and starfish. They have five to seven pairs of enlarged tube feet. These walking legs are hydraulically operated appendages that can be inflated and deflated to move around.

Habitat
the creature lives in the bottom of the ocean, typically in the abyssal plains in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Ocean. the depths are over 1000 meters deep. The related similar animals are also found in the Antarctic.

Food
Sea pigs are deposit or detrial feeders, eating bits of decaying plant and animal material found in deep sea mud. Their mouths are surrounded by a ring of feeding tentacles that they use to sift through the mud and grab onto food. Sea pigs are especially fond of food that has recently fallen from the ocean's surface, like a whale corpse.

Interesting facts
- Scientists have known about sea pigs for more then 100 years. They were first described by Swedish zoologist Hjalmar Theel in 1882. Theel described about 65 new species discovered by the Britiish research ship HMS Challenger during her round the world expedition of 1872-1876.
- Sea pigs often occure in aggregations of many hundreds of individuals. It's not because they enjoy each other's company. It's believed sea pigs tend to gather where food resources are abundant. Thus, many hundreds of sea pigs will be attracted to a dead whale carcass on the seafloor and gather at the spot to fest

Links

http://www.boredpanda.com/unusual-animals/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotoplanes

One of Earth's Exotic Animals Explored #7

Have You Ever Stopped and Thought About What                Kinds of Animals Live in India?

The Creature

The creature that is being explored in this blog today is the Nasikabtrachus Sahyadrensis, commonly known as the Purple Frog or Pignose Frog. The frogs length ranges from 52.8 mm to 89.9 mm from their snout to their backside. The frogs have webbed feet, But what is interesting is the toes have a indented groove in them for digging into the ground similar to like using a shovel.They spend about 2 weeks above ground for mating purposes.

Habitat

The majority of these frogs live in the Western Ghat Mountains Southern of India. But they have been seen occasionally around lush green moist areas. The frogs spend majority of the time underground in their barrows they have created.  And sometimes seen around during monsoon season.

Food

The frogs do not leave their barrows for food, they live on a diet of termites which are also located around their barrows underground. They even consume ants and small worms.

Interesting Facts

- Males are 1/3 the size of females

- The frogs are considered to be on the endanger list due to the deforestation of for coffee, cardamon, and ginger plantations. 

- Female frogs lay their eggs by moving streams or ponds.

Video

Sources

http://amphibiaweb.org/cgi/amphib_query?where-genus=Nasikabatrachus

http://kids.mongabay.com/animal-profiles/indian-purple-frog.html

http://animals.pawnation.com/interesting-pignosed-frog-2767.html