Fascinating Animals and Plants that are Endangered

Maltese Tiger

Maltese tigers are blue colored-tigers from the South Chinese tiger subspecies. Although there are no known specimen evidence to prove the existence of these critically endangered tigers, there have been quite a number of sighting throughout history. Most of the sightings are reported in the Fujian Province of China.

Giant Panda

The Giant Panda is a bear native to China. Pandas can easily be distinguished from other bear species from their coloration. Their diet mainly consists of bamboo as they live in bamboo forests. The picture of a Giant Panda is used in the logo of World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to symbolize the importance of conserving and protecting beautiful but endangered animals like the Panda.

Golden Snub-nosed Monkey

Snub-nosed Monkeys are named after the short stump of a nose on their face. Their nostrils that are arranged upward cause them to sneeze when raindrops enter their noses. The Golden Snub-nosed Monkey is one of the 5 species of snub-nosed monkeys. Habitat loss is their main cause of threat.

Gharial

Gharials are commonly mistaken by most people as crocodiles. Gharials can be recognized from their slender snout. They should not be feared as they do not prey on human. The only surviving member of this family is now critically endangered and can only be found in the Indian subcontinent.

Glass Frog

The Glass Frog is truly one of the most spectacular amphibians in the animal kingdom. Their abdominal skin transparency allows their internal organs - heart, liver, and gastrointestinal tract to be visible through the skin. They are mostly arboreal, living on tree leaves along montane cloud forests rivers.

Monkey –eating Eagle

Being one of the largest birds in the world, the Monkey-eating Eagle has a reputation of being capable of hunting monkeys and other larger preys. They are also known as the Philippine Eagles because they are endemic only in the Philippines. This severely endangered bird is protected and made the national bird of the Philippines.

                                   

Axolotl

Axolotls are among the cutest amphibians in the world. They come in 4 different colors. Axolotls spend their whole life underwater unlike frogs and toads. Scientists are studying them to learn more about regeneration. The smiles on their faces never fade even though they are seriously endangered.

Blobfish

This may look like a miserable man’s head but it actually is a fish. Blobfishes inhabit the deep waters off the coasts of mainland Australia and Tasmania. Even though they can live up to 1,200 meters under the water, they are still threatened by deep-sea fishing. Unlike the axolotl, the Blobfish always shows a sad face. We can make this fish happy by keeping the ocean safe.

Tree Lobster

Despite the name “Tree Lobster”, it is not a crustacean, it is an insect. Another common name given to it is the Lord Howe Island Stick Insect. This stick insect is the world rarest insect. Once, they were widespread around Lord Howe Island but now only about 30 individuals are left. The reason for their rapid fall in numbers is the introduction of black rats into the island. Sometimes introducing foreign animals or plants into an area can affect the ecosystem there.

Gooty Sapphire

The Gooty Sapphire Ornamental Tree Spider is a highly endangered species of tarantula. The beautiful colors and patterns make them look utterly gorgeous. They prefer living inside holes on tall trees. It is no surprising for these spiders to be illegally smuggled because there is a high demand for elegant exotic pets like the Gooty Sapphire.

Rafflesia

The Rafflesia plant is recognized for being the largest flower on Earth. There are 28 known species of Rafflesia, all of them are native to southeast Asia. The Rafflesia plants survive as parasites on vines. Their flowers mimic carrion and smells like it to encourage flies to pollinate them.  These flowers bloom for a short time only hence making successful pollination rare resulting in the endangerment of many of its species.

  As you can see that plenty of amazing living things require protection and conservation. It is not worth for endangered species to go extinct. Animals and plants that are facing extinction have the right to be helped by us because humans are the main cause of their endangerment. We should not be selfish thinking only about ourselves and forgetting the other life forms that share the same planet with us. Wildlife conservation needs the support and effort from everybody. So let us do our part in saving these wonderful creatures of Mother Nature from extinction.


Resources from:
http://www.wikipedia.org/
http://creative-imaginations.net/photoart/worth_1000/blue_tiger.jpg
http://animalsspecies.blogspot.com/2011/05/giant-panda-in-china.html
http://artsonearth.com/www/images/uploads/blogger/goldenmonkey01cj8.jpg
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8m3n7et_tsY/TWYv5PfcMiI/AAAAAAAABHI/NjnyU3Ck0pc/s1600/OMG-Trivia-02-08-11.jpg
http://images.nationalgeographic.com/wpf/media-live/photos/000/136/cache/translucent-frog_13693_600x450.jpg
http://lh4.ggpht.com/ClEiidbD39TKfTISXnzZqKFQG7sAuygWTve3eMJVHuFHvY_CRcjFvD_HsLcBeWqac5uTPKjNzGB87OGqMVphjg=s580
http://images.nationalgeographic.com/wpf/media-live/photos/000/007/cache/mexican-axolotl_780_600x450.jpg
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01565/blobfish_1565953c.jpg
http://bie.ala.org.au/species/images/72504.jpg
http://lh3.ggpht.com/-nboGe9KzkXk/S5EcKg0boGI/AAAAAAAACA0/va9iTAn6szQ/P_mettalica_Main.jpg

MERRY CHRISTMAS from the Christmas Gecko

MERRY CHRISTMAS

to everyone.

I have posted these few photographs on my blog as my Christmas Special.

The Christmas Gecko.

My pet house gecko is happy with his huge present I gave him.

As you can see that he is smiling happily in front of the camera.

He is even thrilled when he found out that I have prepared a home-made Christmas hat for him.

The hat isn't well-made because my fingers are just too big to do something that small.
You can see those bits of sellotape pieces sticking out of his hat.
The hat is not perfect but he accepted it with with love because he knew that it was from my heart.

Just joking, it is not really my pet lizard.
It is a real gecko, not a fake one, but a dead one.
Since it is dead, I have decided to decorate it, give it some props and make it pose in front of my camera.
It's mouth was closed so I have to open it up so that it looks like he is happier.

The gift in the first photo was just something I removed from my small-sized decorated Christmas tree.

It's hat is made myself from papers.

The Christmas greeting plastic words with a missing "s" is taken from my mum's birthday cake.

It died just minutes before this photographs are taken.

Don't get me wrong, I did not kill it.

I found it paralyzed on my house floor, dying of unknown disease.

It is still too young to die of old age as it has not yet reached it's maximum size.

By the time I was studying his cause of death, it has stopped breathing.

This idea of making him my Christmas character came when I can't identify it's cause of death.

An ordinary gecko has passed away and became the CHRISTMAS GECKO, pretty scary but creative.

  

Spiders Website

AUSTRALIA SPIDERS

A website created as a working draft for A field guide to Spiders of Australia by Robert Whyte and Dr Greg Anderson due to be published in 2014.

Spiders of Australia finally have their own website.

I can now use this website as a guide reference to help me identify Australian spiders.

Take a look at the website here in the link

http://www.arachne.org.au/default.asp

SOUTH INDIA SPIDERS

A website has been created to record the spider species of Southern India.

There are many Indian spiders spotted and uploaded in Noah Project.

Many of the species are still left unidentified so now as I have found this website, I can use it as a reference guide to identify Indian spider species.

http://www.southindianspiders.org/south-indian-spiders.htm

SINGAPORE SPIDERS

Singapore might not have many spider species compared to other countries but there are lot of spider photographs uploaded into the Internet from Singapore.

Some species are endemic to Singapore only because Singapore is an island.

So I need some spider species guide as a reference to identify many spiders of Singapore that we don't have here in Malaysia.

http://habitatnews.nus.edu.sg/guidebooks/spiders/text/a-spiders.htm

NORTH AMERICA SPIDERS

North America is a large continent that that holds a lot of spider species

I found this online North American spider identification guide.

It can be very useful for me to identify the spiders there.

http://www.cirrusimage.com/spider.htm

EUROPE SPIDERS

Europe is located between Africa and Asia with Russia, so it might contains a lot of spider species from these 3 great continents.

This website shows the spiders of NW Europe.

http://ednieuw.home.xs4all.nl/Spiders/spidhome.htm

JAPAN SPIDERS

As one of the most modern country in technology and science, Japan should be able to identify and record most of the species of spiders there so I trust the spider website of of Japan.

http://www.cyberoz.net/city/sekine/zukax00.htm

CATS & DOGS

Dogs and cats are always known as natural enemies.
In the televisions, Internet, stories, cats and dogs seldom cope well with each other and are always fighting.
I know that this is shown commonly in Cats and Dogs, Tom and Jerry.......
I do not agree that cats and dogs are NATURAL ENEMIES !
Yesterday, while eating in a local Chinese restaurant, I saw a hungry street cat and a starving stray dog begging for foods together from outside the restaurant.
2 years ago, I saw a young adult puppy and a cat sleeping peacefully and comfortably with each other placing their heads together.
These are some proofs that cats and dogs are not enemies naturally.
But what about the dogs and cats that are seen fighting.
I think humans are responsible for those.
I believe that dogs reared by humans are aggressive towards other animals more than stray urban dogs.
This is because the dogs owned by people have become fierce to guard their master's house.
So naturally, the cats in the neighborhoods are always been barked by the dogs and naturally develops the hatred for dogs.
So if a tamed dog who lived with their master without other animal species has a chance to go out from their owner's house, they will chase smaller animals (usually cats) that they saw.
As for stray dogs, once, one came into the neighborhood and saw a tame cat.
The tame cat who has lived a life in fear of the neighbour's dogs switched itself into defence mode and started to meow aggressively with it's fur all upright.
The stray dog however, showed no interest in the cat and continued it's mission to find garbage foods while still being confronted by the fierce cat.
Who says that Cats and Dogs are natural enemies?
I know that many of them says that, believed that, but I am not convinced.

the RESULTS are OUT

http://wongchunxing.blogspot.com/2011/07/vote-my-insect-photographs.html


I have recently participated in a Photography Contest organized by the Photography Club.
The topic of the competition is "INSECTS". (Spiders are allowed too)
I have prepared five of my best photographs but I can only submit one picture so I asked for votes through Facebook, Blogspot, Flickr and real life.
Based on the votes I collected, I submitted the spider picture because it has the most votes.
The competition results came out at last on the 9th November 2011.
I ended up as the champion of the senior participants. Not bad huh?
The first prize is a lovely little trophy with a couple of certificates.

MY  THOPHY

My submitted photograph

The 5 photos to vote from