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 – Africa
Habitat – varied, from open grassland to scrub forest, desert, and mountainous regions
Niche – social pack hunter
Favorite Food – gazelle
Length – up to 4 feet, nose to tail tip
Weight – up to 80 pounds
Status – Endangered
Threats – habitat destruction, hunting, disease
African wild dogs are pack hunters, using cunning and strength in numbers to take down large prey like wildebeest on the open grasslands of East Africa. Although they are smaller than gray wolves, another well-known pack hunter, they are perhaps the most social dogs on earth, and use their developed behaviors to take down prey faster and larger than themselves. The packs average about 7 or 8 individuals, but some can grow as large as 20. Because of the size of the packs and their wide movement, African wild dogs hunt at least once a day to snare enough food.
Few predators are as formidable as a pack of African wild dogs. Individuals can run at sustained speeds of over 30 miles per hour for up to 3 miles without tiring. Their endurance is matched with an uncanny ability to execute intricate plans of attack, especially to catch animals that evade lead dogs. Usually the packs will attack smaller mammals like gazelles, but occasionally will take on large animals like zebra and wildebeest. When attacking the latter, the dogs will charge a herd in an attempt to separate the weak or sick individuals. Moving in, they will clamp down on the prey’s tail and lip, while other members of the pack bite at its underside to bring it down.
Like gray wolves, African wild dogs exhibit a strict hierarchy within the pack, with a dominant male and female seated at the top. However, these dogs are different in that there are twice as many males as females and all the males are related to each other in a pack. The dominant male gets mating rights and mating usually only occurs between him and the dominant female. Simultaneous births of litters do occur and when they do, they threaten the bonds of the pack. During these situations, fights break out and females battle each other for the right to raise the next generation, which often results in the youngsters being torn to pieces in the fight. Unlike other social dogs in the wild, the aggression with African wild dogs is usually confined to the females of the pack rather than the males.
After decades of persecution, habitat loss, and disease, the remaining populations of African wild dogs are scattered and thin. There are now fewer than 10,000 African wild dogs left in their natural habitat. Aside from their considerable natural adaptability, the one hope remaining for these amazing mammals is a strong conservation effort.
Home – Madagascar
Habitat – Tropical Rainforest
Niche – Apex Predator
Favorite Food – Lemurs
Body Length – 23 to 30 inches
Weight – 20 to 30 pounds
Status – Endangered
Threats – Habitat Loss, Illegal Hunting
The fossa is among the most unique of endangered Madagascar animals. It’s the largest carnivore roaming the fourth largest island on earth, stalking a territory of nearly two square miles in its hunt for other mammals. A solitary hunter with the ability to leap great distances and climb trees, it is one of the most specialized carnivores on earth, though scarcely bigger than a housecat.
Fossas belong to the mongoose family – small, agile hunters of the Old World – but in appearance, they resemble lean cats. They have the same short jaws, large frontal eyes, and rounded ears, but fossas are in no way related to felines, instead occupying their own special subgroup in the mongoose family. They are the apex predators of Madagascar, hunting all over its remaining rainforests. To soften its approach on a hunt, the fossa can retract its claws like a housecat and has excellent eyesight, allowing it to hunt at night.
Despite its formidable array of offensive weapons, it’s unlikely the fossa will be able to hold out much longer in the wild if deforestation in Madagascar continues at its present rate. These animals depend on thick foliage to launch ambush attacks on prey. They also maintain low population densities and without expanses of forest to stake out a large territory, individuals cannot survive. Driven from its traditional rainforest home and deprived of its traditional sources of prey, the fossa has been forced to move into human territory, often killing livestock for food. To protect their livelihood, farmers and ranchers have resorted to trapping and killing fossa, which has further impacted their numbers.
Home – Central and South Asia
Habitat - rocky crags to altitudes of 16,500 feet
Niche – ambush predator
Favorite Food – small mammals
Length – up to 8 feet, nose to tail tip
Weight – up to 165 pounds
Status – Endangered
Threats – habitat loss, poaching, revenge killings
Icy wind. Bitter, bone-splinting cold. Air so thin, it leaves mammals wheezing. By all accounts, one of the least-forgiving regions on planet earth, The Himalayas. And within the highest peaks on earth lives a big cat so extraordinarily adapted to its surroundings, that it has come to dominate the food chain.
The snow leopard is one of the rarest big cats in the wild. Living like a gray curtain across the rocks where it lives, it’s seldom found, even when scientists are searching for it in earnest. A solitary hunter, it generally doesn’t want to be seen. That would be giving up its greatest strength.
The snow leopard’s hunting adaptations are many. Its spine is incredibly flexible, allowing it to extend its muscles further for faster running, and swing its body around obstacles for greater maneuverability. It also sports a long, broad tail that acts as a midair rudder. The snow leopard lives in very dangerous territory. There are many clusters of sharp rocks, slippery ledges, and sheer drops. The mountains of Central Asia do not smile on a mistake in timing or careless slip during a fevered dash for prey. Men barely make it up the Himalayas with advanced hiking gear. The snow leopard not only moves in these forbidding mountains. It runs full speed.
This cat actually prefers the most treacherous areas of the mountains, steppes, and forests of Asia because of the way it hunts prey. Using stealth as its best friend, it will sneak up on potential food. Its broad, furry paws not only allow it superb handling of the rocks in the chase that will be forthcoming. The soft hair muffles nearly all the sound of the snow leopard’s approach. And this tactic works quite well. Living up to 16,000 feet above sea level, these cats will take a wide variety of prey. From animals as small as birds up to giant, formidable opponents like the yak, the snow leopard’s list of hunting quarries is long and impressive.
Then comes the strike. When the snow leopard reaches striking distance, it will release powerful muscle tension in its legs and attempt to leap on the prey. It will do this from as far as 30 feet away with extraordinary jumps. If all goes according the plan, the animal being ambushed won’t realize it has been until it feel’s the cat’s claws in its back.
Snow leopards are solitary. This is because in the cold, rocky wastes of its habitat, other animals are scarce. To make the best of the limited hunting, each hunting-age snow leopard patrols a territory up to 40 square miles. However, when the mating season advances in the Himalayas, snow leopard will come together for a brief time in order to mate and hunt together for the new generation.
And snow leopards do most of this under the cover of darkness, which is one reason why they’re so difficult to study. Unfortunately, there may not be much longer to study these animals. Their numbers have been cut steadily for years, and the few remaining snow leopards remain in remote areas. Difficult for both those who want to help, and those who want to harm these endangered marvels. So, the majestic gray hunters of the mountain peaks may hold on yet a bit longer for us to ponder their future.
