Friday 31 December 2010

Nuts!


Caching or hoarding of food is an essential squirrel characteristic. Squirrels do this by burying food in small holes and covering them up. They may not remember all these sites, as a result of which some of the seeds buried by the animals germinate into shoots. The sites that they remember serve as reserves when food is scarce in winters. Squirrels also eat as much as they can to bulk up before the cold season and the fat reserves are an important source of energy in times of scarcity. Squirrels do not hibernate in tropical regions and may keep warm by huddling together and shivering when the temperatures drop below comfort.
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Monday 27 December 2010

The Kiwi Counselor




Kiwis are the smallest extant ratites (a group of flightless birds) and lay the largest eggs in proportion to body weight. There are five species of kiwis- the great Spotted, the Little Spotted, the Okarito Brown, the Southern Brown and the North Island Brown kiwis. all of them threatened by habitat destruction and predation by invasive species. The North Island Brown kiwi is classified as endangered on the IUCN Red List.