Home – South Asia
Habitat – temperate mountain forests
Niche – arboreal omnivore
Favorite Food – bamboo
Length – up to 4 feet, nose to tail tip
Weight – up to 13 pounds
Status – Endangered
Threats – loss of habitat
The red panda couldn’t look more different than the better-known giant panda. Aside from a similar color pattern on its face, this member of the raccoon family is a far cry from the gigantic black and white panda in terms of looks. It’s much more raccoon-like, with a slender body and a long, bushy tail that helps it balance in the trees of Southern Asia where it lives.
Red pandas prefer dense temperate forests below the tree line on mountain slopes in Asia. The trees allow them access to the tender leaves and shoots of bamboo and as shelter from predators. Red pandas feed primarily on bamboo, but supplement their diet with fruit, grubs, eggs, and small animals. They communicate with others of their kind primarily by smell, marking territories with any number of secretions and excretions. In the world of the dense forest, animals like the red panda must rely on senses other than sight.
Females bear litters of between one and five offspring in nests built into hollow tree trunks and attend to all of the parental care. Not unlike some human relationships, the male involvement in fostering the new generation ends with mating.
Like many other animals dependent on trees, the red panda has fallen victim to loss of its natural habitat. As the forests have fallen in Southern Asia in the past half century, so have the numbers of red pandas in the wild. They are now exceedingly rare and there may be as few as 2500 left.
Home – Southeast Asia
Habitat – tropical forests and grasslands
Niche – large flying insect
Favorite Food – plant leaves in larval form
Wingspan – up to 10 inches
Status – Vulnerable to extinction
Threats – habitat destruction, specimen collection
In the forests of southern of Southern Asia there lives an insect so large that it defies belief. Brilliantly colored with wings big enough to cover your laptop screen, the atlas moth is truly a sight to behold against the lush green backdrop of its tropical habitat.
Atlas moths belong to the largest family of moths, called saturniid moths or emperor moths. About 800 species make up this family, and among them are the biggest moths on planet earth. The atlas moth is near the top of the list, with adult female wingspans measuring as much as 10 inches across, attached to a body the size of a human thumb. Females are larger than males, but lack the broad, feathery antennae.
Like all butterflies and moths, atlas moths begin their life cycle as larvae called caterpillars hatched from eggs. These caterpillars voraciously consume as much plant material as possible in preparation for their next stage of life. Gobbling a variety of plant leaves, they must store a certain amount of energy before they spin hairy cocoons about their bodies. Within the cocoon, they are protected from many predators and begin the process that turns them into the adult, winged moth form. Surprisingly, adult atlas moths do not eat. They must consume enough food in caterpillar form to both molt into their adult form and sustain the flight of a giant adult insect. Adult lives are spent searching for mates and avoiding predators, working on a tight timeline. Since they can’t eat, they need to accomplish their life goals without the ability to buy more time before death.
Despite their size, atlas moths do not possess much in the way of a defensive arsenal. However, like other moths, they can use their bright, spotted coloration to confuse predators. If an atlas moth is disturbed, it will thrust its wings forward, flashing its bright spots. Often, the sight of what appears to be a much larger, different animal is enough to startle a predator long enough to allow the moth to fly away.
Atlas moths are protected in some regions of Asia due to threats posed by habitat destruction and collection. Since they are so huge and spectacularly colored, they are a favorite specimen to mount on display. Like many other animals living in the tropical rainforests of Asia, the atlas moth will only survive if we’re committed to letting it do so.
Home -South and Southeast Asia
Habitat – Forest Canopy
Niche – Nonmigratory Omnivore
Favorite Food – Figs
Wingspan – 5 feet
Weight – 6 pounds
Status – Lower Risk
Threats – Deforestation
In the murkey morning gloom over the forests of Vietnam, something that sounds like a fell beast flaps overhead with massive 5 foot wings. As its alights in some distant tree, a great blast like a trumpet issues from the fog. Something lives in the Asian forests that dwarfs nearly all others that share the trees. A bird bigger than an eagle with a massive weapon of a beak, the Great Indian Hornbill is among the most spectacular birds on earth.
The best feature in the mirror for hornbills is the massive bill, clearly. The size of a rhinoceros horn and crested with a knobby lump called a casque, the bill is used for two things: snatching and breaking. Although this massive bird of flight feeds predominantly on fruit (especially figs), it will snatch up whatever small animal it can with a flick of the beak. Once secured, little is likely to escape. If it’s a lizard, the great indian hornbill will simply flick its head back and swallow it whole it one gulp. Anything larger and it employs a more violent tactic, battering the trapped body into nearby tree branches. Harmless to man, the hornbill is nonetheless a formidable presence in the Southeast Asian forests where bears and tigers roam.
Great Indian Hornbills don’t often fly. Instead, they hop sideways from branch to branch in the dense canopy of the Asian rain forest. However, they can fly, and when they do, it’s quite a spectacle. Their giant “whooshing” wingbeats can be heard by people over a half mile away. It appears that mythology of giant, imposing birds isn’t far out from reality. Yet far from fearsome, the great indian hornbill instead performs a crucial service to the rainforest. As it snatches up fig fruit and any number of seeds during a hard day’s feeding, it will spread those seeds to a new area every time it has to take a dump. As the fertilized seeds germinate and compete for light, they’re able to carry on the next generation of trees outside of the dark shadow of the tallest trunks. In reforestation efforts, the great indian hornbills are valuable stewards.
Great Indian hornbills mate for life, and family life is a fascinating affair. After mating, the pair will secure a nest in the hollow trunk of a tree. Then, as the female sits inside and the male remains out in the forest, both birds begin to construct a wall of mud, twigs, and leaves between themselves. The female is entirely walled inside the tree for several months save a small hole in the mud barrier. The hole is used for two things: to allow the male to pass food into the female, and secondly, to allow her the opportunity to take care of…”business.” I wouldn’t want to be an animal roaming along that particular treetrunk when a female great indian hornbill defacates at high velocity out the interior.
After three months with the single chick, the mother will break out of the nest with her strong bill to get a proper meal herself. Junior will then repair the damaged barrier, walling himself inside the tree for another full month while mom and dad attend to him from the outside. When that month is up, he’s free to experience the world in all its danger and wonder.
Great indian hornbills cannot survive without the trees. They need them for the food they produce. They need hollow trunks to build their nests. They need the trees to hide from predators and to stalk prey. They need them to rest and to roost. There are not many forests left in Asia.
Home – Northern Africa and the Arabian Peninsula
Habitat – Desert
Niche – small carnivore
Favorite Food – lizards
Length – up to 28 inches, nose to tail tip
Weight – up to 3 pounds
Status – Unconfirmed
Threats – trapping for fur and for pet trade
The Sahara desert is a land of murderous extremes. Daytime temperatures can spike to 120 degrees Fahrenheit during the day and below freezing in the dead of night. A cracked landscape of barren rocks, rolling dunes of sand, and very sparse vegetation, the Sahara is not a place where life can have an easy go of it. Most mammals cannot survive in deserts because of the harsh conditions and unavailability of water, but one little mammal has bucked the trend for millenia across the sandy wastes.
The fennec fox is the world’s smallest fox. A full grown adult only weighs in at three pounds, much lighter than a house cat. It inhabits the sandy regions of North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, and is well-adapted to life in the desert. It has fur on the soles of its feet that serves as a buffer between the fox’s body and the burning hot sand of the Sahara, and its giant ears are packed with blood vessels that help to radiate heat away from the body to keep cool. Its size is also an advantage, allowing it to fit into tight spaces and survive on less food and water than larger mammals need.
The fennec fox is also nocturnal, retreating from the sun’s menacing rays during the day into underground burrows until daylight wanes and the temperature dips to a level more suitable for hunting. As the moon rises over the desert, the fennec fox will leave the safety of its den to hunt the sands and rocky crevices for small animals like lizards and insects. It obtains nearly all of its water from the prey that it consumes, so this little fox can live in extremely arid environments where larger animals would most certainly perish.
Most foxes are solitary, but the fennec foxes will often gather in groups of up to 10 individuals. Each member of the group digs a den several yards long into the ground to rear its young and escape larger predators. Females give birth to litters of between 2 and 5 pups and will remain with them in the den for about three months. Fennec foxes reach maturity quickly, becoming fully grown in less than a year, which is yet another adaptation for surviving in a harsh land.
Despite its hardiness, the fennec fox is becoming increasingly rare, especially across the Arabian peninsula, where hunting for its pelts and trapping the young for pets have cut its numbers. There is still much to learn about this tiny dog of the desert. Hopefully it will be around long enough to answer some of the many riddles about its existence.
Home – Southeast Asia
Habitat – tropical forest
Niche – large omnivore (primarily herbivore)
Favorite Food – leaves
Height – up to 5 feet tall
Weight – up to 33 pounds
Status – Vulnerable to Extinction
Threats – habitat loss, poaching
It’s morning in the jungles of the Malay Peninsula in Southeast Asia. Among the thousands of animal calls fighting for ear space in the dense forests, one stands out among the rest. Indeed, this animal’s deafening call would drown out even the roar of the African lion if put to the test. Able to be heard for over two miles through dense rainforest, the call of the siamang is the loudest of any land mammal on earth.
The siamang is a member of the gibbon family, a group of small, tree-dwelling apes that are known for their spectacular leaps and unrivaled agility among the dense upper canopy of the Asian rainforests. Swinging through the trees with a 5-foot arm span, the stocky, broad-chested siamang is the largest gibbon. These shaggy black apes live in the rainforests of Malaysia, Thailand, and Sumatra, sharing their range with a number of other gibbon species in the treetops.
The most striking feature of the siamang is the expandable flap of stretchy skin on its throat. The skin can be inflated the size of the animal’s entire head and acts as a resonator chamber, amplifying the piercing calls of the ape to ward off intruders and attract mates. The noisesome calls are primarily used to frighten other siamangs that have stumbled into a family’s territory, which can range up to 115 acres.
Like other gibbons and great apes, siamangs are social animals, forming small groups of around 5 animals. These family units are very cohesive, and a family member will rarely venture farther than 100 feet from its kin. As with other apes, grooming is the most important social bonding activity with siamangs. However, social interaction between the family unit is kept to a minimum, leaving most of the day open for eating and resting. Leaves are the siamang’s primary food, forming over half its diet. Fruit and insects form the other half, with some regional variation. Half of the siamang’s waking period from dawn until dusk is spent reasting in the trees, taking short siestas in between foragings.
Siamangs are monogamous, meaning they only mate with one partner during the 2-3 year mating cycle, and the mating pair remains together for life. As is the case with other monogamous mammals, there is very little difference between the sexes in terms of body size. Siamangs show an unusual amount of paternal care for a mammal, and the fathers take over care of the infant after about a year. Indeed, the adult male siamang is responsible for a juvenile’s increasing independence on its journey towards adulthood.
After about eight years of family care, the sexually mature siamang is eased out of its family unit and must strike out on its own. Males then begin a period of wandering in search of females and will call out into the forest to find a mate necessary to build a new family. In fact, the loud “singing” of siamangs is an important part of forging and maintaining the crucial pair bonds.
As the forests fall in the Malay Peninsula, so do the siamangs. As illegal logging, clearcutting, and palm oil plantations increase, the future of these magnificent apes grows increasingly in doubt. Without the trees to support them, the siamang’s call will go silent.
