Grevy’s Zebra

There are three species of zebra. The one with the largest ears, thinnest stripes, and Frenchest name is the Grévy’s zebra.  And like the French, they have an attitude. One reason for the ‘tude is they are endangered due to hunting and habitat loss. And really, that’s the only reason that matters.

Each Grévy’s zebra, like all zebras, has a distinct pattern of black stripes, which allows their friends to figure out who they are in a crowd. Many an awkward situation has been avoided because of these individualistic markings, mostly between male and female herd members. They have style, class, and a great sense of humor.

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Koala

Koalas are not bears; they are actually quite nice most of the time. They sleep a lot because they mainly eat eucalypt leaves which are toxic to most animals and kind of crappy in terms of nutrients. So the koalas sleep to conserve energy. Plus, if you lived in Australia and wore a fur coat, you’d probably sleep a lot, too. They are in the elite class of animals known as Marsupials. Marsupials live primarily in the Southern Hemisphere, like Australia, and have pouches where they carry their babies. They always have change in their pouches for vending machines and are happy to lend you a mirror to check and see if you have any leaves in your teeth.

Osprey

The Osprey is a predatory hawk of awesomenness.

I have seen their crazy giant stick nests atop channel markers. They are excellent fishermen; diving into shallow water with feet first and then flying off with a fish in their claws. They are the yogis of the raptors, with excellent flexibility (they can use their wings to shield their eyes from bright lights WHILE flying). They are sometimes confused with bald eagles, but have white bellies and less of a patriotic pretense. Osprey parents share incubating duties, as they are quite open minded about female equality.

Three Banded Armadillo

The Southern Three Banded Armadillo can roll into a ball. It tucks it’s head and tail together and VOILA!! it’s ready for croquet! They are found in South America (hence “Southern” armadillo) but not in abundance, as their habitats are threatened and are considered “near threatened”.

The Aztec called armadillos “azotochtili,” which means “turtle rabbit.” And that is a good description, except they aren’t like rabbits here’s how:

Rabbits                                                                Armadillo

veterinarian                                                       omnivore

hopping                                                               not hopping

represent fertility                                              represent humility

likes hurdles                                                        is a shot-put

Squirrel Glider

No. Not a “Sugar Glider.” A “SQUIRREL Glider.” There are many types of “wrist-winged gliders,” such as mahogany (not made of wood), northern (not a yankee), yellow-bellied (not fearful), etc. They are about double the size of “Sugar Gliders” and have larger molars, which also makes it easy for them to dress as vampires at Halloween. They are about the size of a large rat.

Your reaction upon seeing a large flying rat,”OH MA GAWD. SOMEONE HELP ME!”

Your reaction seeing a fuzzy-tailed Squirrel Glider, “AW! Wook at dat furry-worry wittle baby.”

The Squirrel Glider is quite the acrobat and uses the membrane between their front and back legs to move from tree to tree, “gliding,” if you will.  They live in south-eastern Australian woodlands, with other awesome animals that occur nowhere else in the world.

Striped Dolphin

A group of dolphins living together is called “a pod.” And the Striped Dolphin are totes Pod-lovers. They are like, superduper social and love clicking and whistling and talking on the phone to each other. Striped dolphins are totally athletes. They are always jumping out of the water and doing cool dancey things like “roto-tailing” or “spy-hopping.” You probably don’t even know what those are. Duh.

Even though Striped Dolphins are like, super fun and love to hang out with each other, they do NOT hang out with other species of dolphin AND they’ve not really been successfully trained in captivity. They just want to do, like, their own thing. Why can’t you understand that?

Roseate Spoonbill

If your mouth was a spoon, you’d probably want to eat cereal or soup all day. But the Roseate Spoonbill walks around in shallow waters and moves it’s head from side to side, when a little fish swims by, they SNAP their bills close and swallow it down. Their spoonbills are very sensitive to vibrations, so they can “feel” the fish/crustacean/insect/worm/amphibian moving nearby.

People confuse the Roseate Spoonbill with Flamingos because they are both pink. Two comments on that:

1. Flamingos are a rarer bird to see int he wild.

2. Neither bird enjoys being confused as the other. They are quite vain that way.

They both get their pink hue from eating Canthaxanthin, which is in the water and the things they eat in the water. They are confident, attractive, and never wear hats.

Black Rhinocerus

 

The Black Rhinoceros has a prehensile upper lip, which it uses like a mouth-finger to eat plants. It has two horns, sometimes three, on it’s face. They look like total bad-asses because of their large size and horny faces. The males are looking for trouble; they will charge at anything they perceive as a threat, be it another male, a human walking around looking for directions, GIANT ant-mounds minding their own business, or threatening tree trunks.

The Black rhinoceros is considered CRITICALLY endangered, in other words, almost extinct. This is because they have hunted by human-apes for their horns. Because their horns are pretty. Not because humans NEED their horns for survival, but because they ENJOY the LOOK of them.

Hey. Hey, Human. Why don’t you grown your own horn instead of coveting everyone else’s? Or HEY! I have an idea, use plastic or wood or something. Maybe, I’m going to hunt YOU and use your pinky finger bones for something I totally don’t need like a sandwich toothpick.  You jerks.

 

Llama

Llamas are beautiful, smart, stubborn, and sassy. Incorporating the sassiness and intelligence with a unique defense/hierarchical behavior, spitting, makes them vulgar. However, they are not, they just don’t speak intelligible words and therefore can’t express themselves emphatically, “Gladys just cut in front of me in the salon line!”

Striped Skunk