The aardwolf (Proteles cristatus) is an African carnivorous mammal of the family Hyaenidae. The aardwolf, whose name in Afrikaans means 'earth wolf', resembles a small striped hyena. It is yellowish with vertical black stripes and a bushy, black-tipped tail, and it bears a long, coarse mane of erectile hairs along the length of its back. The aardwolf lives on the open, grassy plains of southern and eastern Africa. The aardwolf feeds largely on termites, particularly on the species Trinervitermes trinervoides. It is nocturnal, lives in a burrow, and is usually solitary but may forage in small packs. The litter generally consists of three or four young. The aardwolf is harmless and shy; when attacked, by dogs for example, it emits a musky-smelling fluid and may fight. Research Aardwolf
The adjutant-bird (Leptoptilus argala) is a large grallatorial or wading bird of the stork family. It is native to the warmer parts of India where it is called Hurgila or Argala. The adjutant-bird stands about 150 cm high, has an enormous bill, nearly bare head and neck, and a pouch hanging from the under part of the neck. It is one of the most voraciouscarnivorous birds known, and in India, from its devouring all sorts of carrion and noxious animals, is protected by law. From underneath the wings are obtained those light downy feathers known as marabou feathers, from the name of an allied species of bird (Leptoptilus marabou) inhabiting Western Africa, and also producing them. Research Adjutant-bird
Allosaurus was the biggest and fiercest carnivorousdinosaur of the Jurassic period. It was 15m tall, about 12 m long and weighed about three tons. Remains of Allosaurus were first discovered in Colorado in 1869 and then in 1877 more were discovered by Dr O C Marsh. Research Allosaurus
An animal is an organized and sentient living being. Life in the earlier periods of natural history was attributed almost exclusively to animals. With the progress of science, however, it was extended to plants. In the case of the higher animals and plants there is no difficulty in assigning the individual to one of the two great kingdoms of organic nature, but in their lowest manifestations, the vegetable and animal kingdoms are brought into such immediate contact that it becomes almost impossible to assign them precise limits, and to say with certainty where the one begins and the other ends. From form no absolute distinction can be fixed between animals and plants. Many animals, such as the sea-shrubs, sea-mats, etc, so resemble plants in external appearance that they were looked upon as such. With regard to internal structure no line of demarcation can be laid down, all plants and animals being, in this respect, fundamentally similar; that is, alike composed of molecular, cellular, and fibrous tissues. Neither are the chemical characters of animal and vegetable substances more distinct. Animals contain in their tissues and fluids a larger proportion of nitrogen than plants, whilst plants are richer in carbonaceous compounds than the former. In some animals, moreover, substances almost exclusively confined to plants are found. Thus the outer wall of Sea-squirts contains cellulose, a substance largely found in plant-tissues; whilst chlorophyll, the colouring-matter of plants, occurs in Hydra and many other lower animals.
Power of motion, again, though broadly distinctive of animals, cannot be said to be absolutely characteristic of them. Thus many animals, as oysters, sponges, corals, etc, in their mature condition are rooted or fixed, while the embryos of many plants, together with numerous fully developed forms, are endowed with locomotive power by means of vibratile, hair-like processes called cilia. The distinctive points between animals and plants which are most to be relied on are those derived from the nature and mode of assimilation of the food. Plants feed on inorganic matters, consisting of water, ammonia, carbonic acid, and mineral matters. They can only take in food which is presented to them in a liquid or gaseous state. The exceptions to these rules are found chiefly in the case of plants which live parasitically on other plants or on animals, in which cases the plant may be said to feed on organic matters, represented by the juices of their hosts. Animals, on the contrary, require organized matters for food. They feed either upon plants or upon other animals. But even carnivorous animals can be shown to be dependent upon plants for subsistence; since the animals upon which Carnivora prey are in their turn supported by plants. Animals, further, can subsist on solid food in addition to liquids and gases; but many animals (such as the Tapeworms) live by the mere imbibition of fluids which are absorbed by their tissues, such forms possessing no distinct digestive system.
Animals require a due supply of oxygen gas for their sustenance, this gas being used in respiration. Plants, on the contrary, require carbon dioxide. The animal exhales or gives out carbon dioxide as the part result of its tissue-waste, whilst the plant taking in this gas is enabled to decompose it into its constituent carbon and oxygen. The plant retains the former for the uses of its economy, and liberates the oxygen, which is thus restored to the atmosphere for the use of the animal. Animals receive their food into the interior of their bodies, and assimilation takes place in their internal surfaces. Plants, on the other hand, receive their food into their external surfaces, and assimilation is effected in the external parts, as are exemplified in the leaf-surfaces under the influence of sunlight. All animals possess a certain amount of heat or temperature which is necessary for the performance of vital action. The only classes of animals in which a constantly-elevated temperature is kept up are birds and mammals. The bodily heat of the former varies from 100 degrees Fahrenheit to 112 degrees Fahrenheit and of the latter from 96 degrees to 104 degrees. The mean or average heat of the human body is about 99 degrees Fahrenheit, and it never falls much below this in health. Below birds animals are named cold-blooded, this term meaning in its strictly physiological sense that their temperature is usually that of the medium in which they live, and that it varies with that of the surrounding medium, Warm-blooded animals, on the contrary, do not exhibit such variations, but mostly retain their normal temperature in any atmosphere. The cause of the evolution of heat in the animal body is referred to the union (by a process resembling ordinary combustion) of the carbon and hydrogen of the system with the oxygen taken in from the air in the process of respiration. Research Animal
The Arctic fox or polar fox (Alopex lagopus) is a carnivorous mammal of the family Canidae, found in Arctic and alpine regions. The Arctic fox is greyish-brown in colour, turning white in the winter. It has a shorter muzzle and shorter ears than the red fox, and a very thick coat. The
Arctic fox eats voles, lemmings, birds and eggs during the summer, surviving on carrion and shellfish at the coast during the winter. Research Arctic Fox
A bat is a nocturnal, wing-handed, flying mammals, having the forelimb peculiarly modified so as to serve for flight, and constituting the order Cheiroptera (Chiroptera). Bats are sub-divided into two groups; Megachiroptera (the megabats) and Microchiroptera (the microbats).
Bats are structurally not very different from typical mammals except for the extension of their finger bones to carry flight membranes, and their backward bending knees, though their conquest of the air is a marked difference. Echolocation in bats is associated with large ears and in some cases facial skin growths, and the ability to catch flying insects at night. This food source is seasonal, which, combined with their small size, has favoured the evolution of hibernation. Daily torpor, in which the body temperature drops to the ambient temperature is common among temperate bats, and is another energy-saving adaptation necessitated by small bodies engaged in such a high energy activity as flying. Short migrations to roosts of appropriate temperatures occur throughout the year. Mating begins in the autumn, and continues at intervals throughout hibernation. Sperm is stored and ovulation and fertilisation take place in the spring with a typical litter of just one young occurring. The parent shows a strong degree of attachment for her offspring, and when they are captured, will follow them, and even submit to captivity herself rather than forsake her charge.
Bats are common in temperate and warm regions. but are most numerous and largest in the tropics. All European bats are small, and have a mouse-like skin. The body of the largest British species, Vespertilio noctula, is less than that of a mouse, but its wings stretch about 38 cm. During the day it remains in caverns, in the crevices of ruins, hollow trees, and such-like lurking-places, and flits out at evening in search of food, which consists of insects.
Several species of the same genus are common in North America, Many bats are remarkable for having a singular nasal cutaneous appendage, bearing in some cases, a fancied resemblance to a horse-shoe. Two of these horse-shoebats occur in Britain. Bats may be conveniently divided into two sections - the insectivorous or carnivorous, comprising all European and most African and American species; and the fruit-eating, belonging to tropical Asia and Australia, with several African forms. An Australian fruit-eating bat (Pteropus edulis) commonly known as the kalong or flying-fox, is the largest of all the bats; it does much mischief in orchards. At least two species of South American bats are known to suck the blood of other mammals, and thence are called 'vampire-bats' (though this name has also been given to a species not guilty of this habit). The best known is the Desmodus Rufus of Brazil, Chilli, etc. Research Bat
The butterwort (Pinguicula vulgaris) is a perennial, carnivorous, herb of the family Lentibulariaceae, native to northern and central Europe where it grows in bogs, on damp heaths, moors and damp rocks. It has a basal rosette of sticky, entire, fleshy, bright yellow-green ovate leaves. The stickiness being caused by a fluid secreted by warty glands which catches and digests insects so as to provide the plant with the required nitrogen. When an insect becomes trapped, the leave curls up around it. Rising from the centre of the rosette are scapes which are topped by two-lipped, tubular, bluish-white coloured flowers with a long slender spur. The fruit is an ovoid capsule which splits into two halves. Research Butterwort
The Canidae are the dog family, the only family included in the section Cynoidea, of the order Carnivora. The Canidae are much less highly specialized forms than the cats, as is shown by their more numerous and less strictly carnivorousteeth, their blunt non-retractile claws, and certain minor anatomical peculiarities. Most of the dogs hunt in packs, combining to overthrow animals which would be too powerful for the efforts of individuals. The members of the family are widely distributed, the type genus Canis being truly cosmopolitan, to which belong dogs, wolves, jackals and foxes, animals which differ from one another only in minor peculiarities. Research Canidae
Carcharodontosaurus was a giantcarnivorousdinosaur of the Cretaceous period. Remains of Carcharodontosaurus have been found in North Africa since 1931, from which it is believed the dinosaur was about 8 metres long, walked on its hind legs, had short arms with powerful claws and fed on herbivorous dinosaurs in the surrounding area. Research Carcharodontosaurus
Carnivora is a term applicable to any creatures that feed on flesh or animal substances, but is now applied specially to an order of mammals which prey upon other animals. The head is small, the jaws powerful, and the skin is well covered with hair. Two sets of teeth, deciduous or milk and permanent, are always developed in succession, and in both sets incisors, canines, and molars are distinguishable. The stomach is simple and the alimentarycanal short, thus making the body as light and slender as possible for the purpose of hunting and springing on its prey.
The muscular activity of the Carnivora is very great, their respiration and circulation very active, and their demand for food is consequently constant. Carnivora are often divided into Plantigrada, comprising the bears, badgers, raccoons, etc; Digitigrada, comprising lions, tigers, cats, dogs; and Pinnipedia or Pinnigrada, comprising the seals and walruses. The two former divisions are also classed together as Fissipedia. The typical Plantigrada are distinguished by their putting the whole sole of the foot to the ground in walking, while the Digitigrada walk on the tips of their toes. The Plantigrada are also less decidedly carnivorous, and feed much on roots, honey, and fruits. In the Pinnigrada the body is long and of a fish shape, the fore and hind limbs are short and form broad webbed swimming-paddles. The hind-feet are placed far back, and more or less tied down. to the tail by the integuments. Research Carnivora
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Aardwolf
