Field trip to the zoo

In today's class we went to the zoo, something i thought was super fun. I love all kinds of animals and i have much respect for them. I took a lot of pictures to show you:

Flamingos

Fun facts:

• There are six distinct species of flamingo, but it takes a trained eye to distinguish them.
• The color pink comes from beta-carotene in the crustaceans and plankton that flamingos eat. Zoo flamingos will turn white if their diet is not supplemented with live shrimp or flamingo chow containing carotenoid pigments.
•  The feathers under their wings (flight feathers) are black. You only see them when the birds are flying.
•  The male and female of a mating pair build a nest together, and both sit on the egg while it incubates for about a month.
•  Some flamingos find it easier to steal a nest that’s already been built, so mating pairs must guard a nest from other flamingos as well as predators.
•  Flamingo chicks are born with grey and white feathers. They do not turn pink for a year or two. Their beaks are straight, and begin to curve as they grow and mature.

Gorilla

Fun facts:

• Gorillas are the world’s largest primates. They are closely related to humans, with 98% of their DNA identical to that of Homo sapiens.
• As roaming herbivores, gorillas play a vital role in seed dispersal. Many large fruit trees depend upon these animals to survive.
• Gorillas are highly intelligent. They use tools and have various methods of communication, including some 25 different sounds. One famous captive-born individual, Koko, has been taught sign language since she was a year old. By the age of 40, she had a library of about 1,000 signs and could understand some 2,000 words of English.
• Adult gorillas can eat up to 30kg of food each day.
• Gorillas build nests in which to sleep, both on the ground and in trees, made of leaves and branches.
• Gorillas have unique noseprints, much like human fingerprints, which can be used to identify individuals.

Kangaroos

Fun Facts:

• Kangaroos are marsupial animals that are found in Australia as well as New Guinea.
• There are four different kangaroo species, the red kangaroo, eastern grey kangaroo, western grey kangaroo and antilopine kangaroo.
• Kangaroos can hop around quickly on two legs or walk around slowly on all four.
• Kangaroos can’t walk backwards.
• Kangaroos have very powerful legs and can be dangerous at times.
• Kangaroos can jump very high, sometimes three times their own height.
• Kangaroos can swim.
• Most kangaroos eat grass.
• Baby kangaroos are known as ‘joeys’.
• A group of kangaroos is called a ‘mob’, ‘troop’ or ‘court’.
• The red kangaroo is the largest marsupial in the world.
• Kangaroos usually live to around six years old in the wild.

Lions and tigers. oh my!

Some of the kangaroos had jumped into the big cats place! 

But it looks like they are friends.

Lion fun facts:

• African lions are the most social of all big cats and live together in groups or “prides.” A pride consists of about 15 lions.
• Male lions defend the pride’s territory while females do most of the hunting. Despite this, the males eat first.
• A lion’s roar can be heard from as far as 5 miles away.
• A lion can run for short distances at 50 mph and leap as far as 36 feet.
•  Even though the lion is sometimes referred to as the “king of the jungle,” it actually only lives in grasslands and plains.
• A good gauge of a male lion’s age is the darkness of his mane. The darker the mane, the older the lion.
•  A lion’s heels don’t touch the ground when it walks.
• A lion may sleep up to 20 hours a day.

Tiger fun facts:

• The tiger is the biggest species of the cat family.
• Tigers can reach a length of up to 3.3 metres (11 feet) and weigh as much as 300 kilograms (660 pounds).
• Around half of tiger cubs don’t live beyond two years of age.
• Tiger cubs leave their mother when they are around 2 years of age
• A group of tigers is known as an ‘ambush’ or ‘streak’.
• Tigers are good swimmers and can swim up to 6 kilometres.
• Rare white tigers carry a gene that is only present in around 1 in every 10000 tigers.
• Tigers usually hunt alone at night time.
• Less than 10% of hunts end successfully for tigers
• Tigers can easily jump over 5 metres in length.
• There are more tigers held privately as pets than there are in the wild.
• Tigers that breed with lions give birth to hybrids known as tigons and ligers.

Thirsty panda

Fun facts:

•  Giant pandas (often referred to as simply 'pandas') are black and white bears. In the wild, they are found in thick bamboo forests, high up in the mountains of central China.
• These magnificent mammals are omnivores. But whilst they will occasionally eat small animals and fish, bamboo counts for 99 percent of their diet.
• These guys are BIG eaters - every day they fill their tummies for up to 12 hours, shifting up to 12 kilograms of bamboo!  
•  Baby pandas are born pink and measure about 15cm - that's about the size of a pencil! They are also born blind and only open their eyes six to eight weeks after birth.
• Family time! Female pandas give birth to one or two cubs every two years. Cubs stay with their mothers for 18 months before venturing off on their own!
• Unlike most other bears, pandas do not hibernate. When winter approaches, they head lower down their mountain homes to warmer temperatures, where they continue to chomp away on bamboo! 
• Sadly, these beautiful bears are endangered, and it's estimated that only around 1,000 remain in the wild. That's why we need to do all we can to protect them! 

Giraffe

Fun facts:

Giraffes are the tallest mammals on Earth. Their legs alone are taller than many humans—about 6 feet.

A giraffe's neck is too short to reach the ground. As a result, it has to awkwardly spread its front legs or kneel to reach the ground for a drink of water.

Giraffes only need to drink once every few days. Most of their water comes from all the plants they eat.

Giraffes spend most of their lives standing up; they even sleep and give birth standing up.

The giraffe calf can stand up and walk after about an hour and within a week, it starts to sample vegetation.

A giraffe’s spots are much like human fingerprints. No two individual giraffes have exactly the same pattern.

Giraffes only need 5 to 30 minutes of sleep in a 24-hour period! They often achieve that in quick naps that may last only a minute or two at a time.

Whilst it was thought that giraffes did not make any sounds, this is now known to be untrue, as giraffes bellow, snort, hiss and make flute-like sounds, as well as low pitch noises beyond the range of human hearing.

Elephant

Fun Facts:

• Elephants are the largest land animals in the world.
• Elephants can live to be over 70 years old.
• Only one mammal can’t jump — the elephant.
• The average weight for an elephant heart is about 27 to 46 pounds!
• An elephant’s skin is an inch thick.
• Elephants have poor eyesight but an amazing sense of smell.
• At the age of 16, an elephant can reproduce, but rarely has more than four children throughout her lifetime. At birth, an elephant calf weighs about 230 lbs!
• Elephants have the longest pregnancy of all the animals. It takes a female 22 months from conception to give birth.
•  Elephants purr like cats do, as a means of communication.
• Elephants prefer one tusk over the other, just as people are either left or right-handed.
• Tusks are an elephant’s incisor teeth. They are used for defense, digging for water, and lifting things.
• The elephant trunk has more than 40,000 muscles in it.
• The elephant’s trunk is able to sense the size, shape and temperature of an object. An elephant uses its trunk to lift food and suck up water then pour it into its mouth.
•  Elephants cry, play, have incredible memories, and laugh.
• Elephant feet are covered in a soft padding that help uphold their weight, prevent them from slipping, and dull any sound. Therefore elephants can walk almost silently!
• Elephants have greeting ceremonies when a friend that has been away for some time returns to the group.
• Elephants pay homage to the bones of their dead, gently touching the skulls and tusks with their trunks and feet. when an elephant walks past a place that a loved one has died, he/she will stop dead still; a silent and empty pause that can last several minutes.

Brown Bears

Fun facts:

Brown bears are omnivores, which means they eat just about anything. They’ll eat deer, fish, small mammals, berries, honey, nuts and plants. They’ll eat your garbage if you let them, but you should never feed a bear.

Brown bears dig cozy caves with their long claws. They sleep in the caves for most of the winter. Their heartbeats slow down to 10 beats per minute.

Brown bear mamas have babies during the winter while they are asleep! The babies drink mama’s milk and stay warm in their mama’s fur. In the spring, mama wakes up to meet her new cubs.

And i met a baby horse!

Do you have a favorite animal?

Let me know in the comments :D