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Great White Shark – Carcharodon Carcharias
Facts:
Type: Marine
Diet: Carnivore
Size: 15 ft (4.6 m) to more than 20 ft (6 m)
Weight: 5,000 lbs (2,268 kg) or more
Protection status: Endangered
Size relative to a bus:
Map
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Estuarine Pipefish – Syngnathus Watermeyeri
Facts:
Type: Marine
Diet: Carnivore
Size: 35–40 cm
Protection status: Endangered
Further Facts:
This slender, cylindrical fish was believed to be extinct in the early 1990s until a miraculous rediscovery in 1995, but the population remains teetering on the very brink of extinction. The long, cylindrical body is a characteristic pipefish shape. It is a greenish brown colour and there are dark lines visible on the head and paler lines along the body.
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Common Sawfish – Pristis Pristis
Facts:
Type: Marine
Diet: Carnivore
Size: 7m (23feet)
Weight: 2455kg (5,410pound)
Protection status: Endangered
Further Facts:
The sawfish’s most distinctive feature is the saw-like rostrum. The rostrum is covered with electrosensitive pores that allow the sawfish to detect slight movements of prey hiding in the muddy sea floor. The rostrum also serves as a digging tool to unearth buried crustaceans. Should suitable prey try to swim past, the normally lethargic sawfish springs from the bottom and slashes at it with its saw. This generally stuns or impales the prey sufficiently for the sawfish to devour it. Sawfish also defend themselves with their rostrum against intruding divers and predators such as sharks. The “teeth” protruding from the rostrum are not real teeth, but modified tooth-like structures called denticles.
The body and head of a sawfish are flat, and they spend most of their time lying on the sea floor. Like rays, a sawfish’s mouth and nostrils are on their flat undersides. The mouth is lined with small, dome-shaped teeth for eating small fish and crustaceans; sometimes the fish swallows them whole. Sawfish breathe with two spiracles just behind the eyes that draw water to the gills. The skin is covered with tiny dermal denticles that gives the fish a rough texture. Sawfish are usually light grey or brown; the smalltooth sawfish, Pristis pectinata, appears olive green.
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Bluefin Tuna – Thunnus
Facts:
Type: Marine
Diet: Carnivore
Size: 6 – 10 feet
Weight: 1500 pounds
Protection status: Endangered
Further Facts:
Bluefin are the largest tuna and can live up to 40 years. They migrate across oceans and can dive more than 4,000 feet. Bluefin tuna are made for speed: built like torpedoes, have retractable fins and their eyes are set flush to their body. They are tremendous predators from the moment they hatch, seeking out schools of fish like herring, mackerel and even eels. They hunt by sight and have the sharpest vision of any bony fish. There are three species of bluefin: Atlantic (the largest and most endangered), Pacific, and Southern. Most catches of the Atlantic bluefin tuna are taken from the Mediterranean Sea, which is the most important bluefin tuna fishery in the world.
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Black Rhinoceros – Diceros Bicornis
Nearing extinction, the black rhinoceros has long been hunted for its horns, thought, in some cultures, to possess magical and medicinal qualities.
Fast Facts:
Type: Mammal
Diet: Herbivore
Size: Height at shoulder, 4.5 to 6 feet (1.4 to 1.8 m)
Weight: 1,760 to 3,080 lbs (800 to 1400 kg)
Protection status: Endangered
Size relative to a 6-ft (2-m) man:
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Further Facts:
Both black and white rhinoceroses are actually gray. They are different not in color but in lip shape. The black rhino has a pointed upper lip, while its white relative has a squared lip. The difference in lip shape is related to the animals’ diets. Black rhinos are browsers that get most of their sustenance from eating trees and bushes. They use their lips to pluck leaves and fruit from the branches. White rhinos graze on grasses, walking with their enormous heads and squared lips lowered to the ground.
Except for females and their offspring, black rhinos are solitary. Females reproduce only every two and a half to five years. Their single calf does not live on its own until it is about three years old.
Black rhinos feed at night and during the gloaming hours of dawn and dusk. Under the hot African sun, they take cover by lying in the shade. Rhinos are also wallowers. They often find a suitable water hole and roll in its mud, coating their skin with a natural bug repellent and sun block.
Rhinos have sharp hearing and a keen sense of smell. They may find one another by following the trail of scent each enormous animal leaves behind it on the landscape.
Black rhinos boast two horns, the foremost more prominent than the other. Rhino horns grow as much as three inches (eight centimeters) a year, and have been known to grow up to five feet (one and a half meters) long. Females use their horns to protect their young, while males use them to battle attackers.
The prominent horn for which rhinos are so well known has also been their downfall. Many animals have been killed for the hard, hairlike growth, which is revered for medicinal uses in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. The horn is also valued in North Africa and the Middle East as an ornamental dagger handle.
The black rhino once roamed most of sub-Saharan Africa, but today is on the verge of extinction due to poaching fueled by commercial demand.
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Bigeye Tuna – Thunnus Obesus
Facts:
Type: Marine
Diet: Carnivore
Size: 2.5m
Weight: 178kg-180kg
Protection status: Endangered
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Black-Footed Ferret – Mustela Nigripes
With its long, slender body, the black-footed ferret easily searches the burrows and tunnels of its favorite prey, the prairie dog.
Fast Facts:
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Further Facts:
The black-footed ferret could also be called the black-eyed ferret because of the distinctive “stick-em up” mask that adorns its face. The tan ferrets also have black markings on their feet, legs, and tail tip.
This animal’s long slender body, like that of a weasel, enables it to crawl in and out of the holes and dwellings of its primary prey—the prairie dog.
Though black-footed ferrets sometimes eat squirrels, mice, and other rodents, prairie dogs are essential to their survival, making up the majority of the ferret diet. These voracious predators hunt them in their own burrows, and take shelter in abandoned prairie dog dwellings.
Many prairie dog towns became ghost towns as populations underwent a 20th century decline. Farmers and ranchers (with government assistance) eliminated many prairie dogs because their underground complexes are destructive to fields. In the process, the black-footed ferret was nearly wiped out. In 1987, 18 animals were captured in the wild to begin a captive breeding program, which has since reintroduced ferrets into promising western habitats.
Ferret reintroduction efforts have been mixed. Populations need viable prairie dog towns to survive, but they also face threats from predators such as golden eagles, owls, and coyotes. Reintroduced animals lack some survival skills so their mortality rate is high. Diseases are another major threat to prairie dog towns and to the black-footed ferrets that depend upon them.
These solitary animals live alone, and in May and June females give birth to litters of one to six kits that they raise alone. The young are able to survive on their own by fall.
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Angel Shark – Squatina squatina
Facts:
Type: Marine
Diet: Carnivore
Size: 1.5m~2m
Protection status: Endangered
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Bengal Tiger – Panthera Tigris Tigris
Tigers are the largest members of the cat family and are renowned for their power and strength.
Did you know?
A tiger’s roar can be heard as far as 2 mi (3 km) away.
Fast Facts:
Type: Mammal
Diet: Carnivore
Average life span in the wild: 8 to 10 years
Size: Head and body, 5 to 6 ft (1.5 to 1.8 m); tail, 2 to 3 ft (0.6 to 0.9 m)
Weight: 240 to 500 lbs (109 to 227 kg)
Protection status:Endangered
Size relative to a 6-ft (2-m) man:
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Further Facts:
Tigers are the largest members of the cat family and are renowned for their power and strength.
There were eight tiger subspecies at one time, but three became extinct during the 20th century. Over the last 100 years, hunting and forest destruction have reduced tiger populations from hundreds of thousands of animals to perhaps fewer than 2,500. Tigers are hunted as trophies, and also for body parts that are used in traditional Chinese medicine. All five remaining tiger subspecies are endangered, and many protection programs are in place.
Bengal tigers live in India and are sometimes called Indian tigers. They are the most common tiger and number about half of all wild tigers. Over many centuries they have become an important part of Indian tradition and lore.
Tigers live alone and aggressively scent-mark large territories to keep their rivals away. They are powerful nocturnal hunters that travel many miles to find buffalo, deer, wild pigs, and other large mammals. Tigers use their distinctive coats as camouflage (no two have exactly the same stripes). They lie in wait and creep close enough to attack their victims with a quick spring and a fatal pounce. A hungry tiger can eat as much as 60 pounds (27 kilograms) in one night, though they usually eat less.
Despite their fearsome reputation, most tigers avoid humans; however, a few do become dangerous maneaters. These animals are often sick and unable to hunt normally, or live in an area where their traditional prey has vanished.
Females give birth to litters of two to six cubs, which they raise with little or no help from the male. Cubs cannot hunt until they are 18 months old and remain with their mothers for two to three years, when they disperse to find their own territory.
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Aci Göl Toothcarp – Aphanius Transgrediens
Facts:
Type: Marine
Diet: harbivore
Size: 45~50mm
Protection status: Endangered
Video Clip:
Endangered Animals: Our Friend 