Animals

Biologists believe that the Caribbean monk seals have become extinct because of the amount of people that hunt them for research, blubber, and food. They stated that it has been decades since they have seen a sighting of one and they now fear that the Mediterranean and Hawaiian monk seals will be the next ones in line.

The last confirmed sighting of a Caribbean monk seal was in 1952 between Jamaica and Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries Service confirmed Friday that the species is extinct.

A possum can grow be small to medium of size and is native to New Guinea, Australia, and Sulawesi. Possum’s are known to give out a horrible odor that is caused by large musk glands that are located behind each ear.

The Tasmanian devil in Australia is now on the endangered species list due to a deadly cancer that is killing them off. Scientists believe that the tumor begins in the head of the animal and slowly spreads to their face and mouth. This keeps it from being able to eat anything and and kill it in as little as two months. Because of this the population of the marsupial has decreased by close to 60%.

Armadillos are mammals and were given this name because of their bony armor shells. Armadillos in Spanish means “little armored one”. They use their sharp claws to dig for food like grubs and also to dig themselves a place to live in. They prefer to dig burrows in moist soil near streams or lakes.

Native to the grasslands of North America , small burrowing rodents know as prairie dogs, will grow between a foot and foot and a half long. The prairie dog can be found in Canada , Mexico , and the United States. The prairie dogs are highly social and live in large colonies. These large colonies are called “towns”.

Weasels are mammals that can grow from fifteen to thirty-five centimeters and can be recognized by their light brown upper coat and white belly. Many weasels that live in high latitudes moult to a white coat and spot a black spot of fur at the tip of the tail when winter hits.

New research may show that dinosaurs were combative while in their teenage years. The fossils show that they might have had violent fights in which they butted heads. According to research the bones showed that the skulls of these younger dinosaurs have compressed and rebounded – which can happen after a serious head ram.

Global warming is affecting the weather in the Arctic Circle and melting the ice too fast putting hundreds of newborn seal cubs at risk. The World Wide Fund for Nature located in Germany noticed the ice melting and stated on Monday that the cubs could die from hunger and cold.
“In some parts perhaps not a single one of the seal cubs born in the past few weeks will survive,” the WWF said in a statement. It said hundreds of the roughly 1,500 ringed seal cubs born this month and last month were in danger.

The antelope is a mammal that is closely related to goats and cows. There are many different species of the antelope that range in size. The male antelopes are known for their horns – which are permanent and often curve like an arc or helices.

Remember the Velociraptor, the fearsome dinosaur made famous in the Jurassic Park films. It seems that they weren’t as cary in real life as we thought they were. They had feathers and probably more closely resembled a big turkey than the killer screen dinosaur, scientists have discovered.