Home – Carribean
Habitat – dry rocky ground with cacti
Niche – large herbivore
Favorite Food – leaves and berries
Body Length – between 3 and 4 feet
Weight – 10 to 20 pounds
Status – Vulnerable to Extinction
Threats – Habitat loss, competition from invasive species
The rhinoceros iguana is a massive lizard, weighing as much as a beagle and rivaling the length a German shepherd from nose to tail tip. It gets its name from its mottled gray skin and protruding scales on its nose that resembles a rhino’s horn. Although they look ferocious, these iguanas are vegetarian. They subsist exclusively on tender leaves and fruit from low-hanging shrubs in the rocky interior of the island of Hispaniola and immediate Caribbean. More often than not, these shy iguanas will bolt away from danger at high speed and seek refuge in hiding. However, it’s unwise to corner a startled rhinoceros iguana, for it can deliver a powerful bite and will strike out repeatedly with its muscular tail.
Females lack the large nose “horns” and domed helmet of the males, who are fiercely territorial during the mating season and will attack intruders to drive them from their territory and assert dominance. After mating, the female will lay between 10 and two dozen eggs that she will guard with her life in a small burrow. After three months, the eggs will hatch and the youngsters will be left by the mother to fend for themselves in a dangerous world. Few will be lucky enough to reach adulthood.
Despite their formidable size and strength, rhinoceros iguanas are now vulnerable to extinction. Like many animal species native to islands, these iguanas are threatened by invasive species brought by colonial ships centuries ago. Predation and competition for food from pigs, dogs, rats, and cats have cut the numbers of wild rhinoceros iguanas significantly. Habitat destruction in the fragile economies of Haiti and the Dominican Republic has also driven this monster lizard from much of its former range. Its future is in doubt.
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 – Southeast Africa
Habitat – moist grassland
Niche – Large grassland herbivore
Favorite Food – grass
Length – between 6 and 8 feet long
Weight – between 300 and 650 pounds
Status – Lower Risk
Threats – Habitat loss from ranching and farming
From a distance, the sable antelope looks like a small horse with horns. Although both the male and the female sables have the same markings on their bodies, the male is jet black and the female is a golden brown. Their fantastical appearance brings African unicorns to mind.
Sable antelope are peculiar relatives of horses, sheep, and goats. Both sexes sport two heavily-ringed horns the size and shape of curved swords atop their heads. These are the mark of their species, how males will determine dominance, and how the next generation will come about as a result.
The dry season has ended in Central Africa on a wide strip of grassland running from Kenya to South Africa. During this difficult season, the local sable antelopes had gathered into herds of 100 or more to protect young and locate food. But now, as the rain comes down with force to mark the opening of the new season, things get wet. It’s the mating season and the males have broken off into small gangs to prowl the moist grasslands for females. In fact, sable antelope prefer moister grasslands than most of their antelope cousins. For these young men, finding the ladies is only half the battle. The real test comes when the gang members square off for breeding rights.
Dipping his head into a bow, the dominant male shows off his gravitas to others thirsting to challenge him. There’s a lot at stake. Whichever sable antelope male earns the wary submission of the others gets to mate with a harem of females, sometimes 20 strong. Big horns, loud snorts, and dogged willpower decide the day.
When the dominant male has driven off the competition, he corrals his prize (often less than willing) to the territory he now controls. You might say sable antelope society is something like the human equivalent of territorial rule by warlords. A handful of males in a region control a zone of land and everything in it, but not beyond. Stout-hearted male sables have been observed defending and holding their territory for two years or more.
Although a big 600 pound male can drive even formidable predators from his territory, he doesn’t have such a cordial time of it with humans. After years of neglect by the developed world except for the exploitation of its living and physical resources, Africa is coming into its own. And as the young continent starts to assert its own destiny in the 21st century, the future of the sable antelope – alongside all the great mammals of the Serengeti, will once again be directed by one of two paths: one towards conservation or one of destruction.
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 – Sub Saharan Africa, West and South Asia
Habitat – varied, including grasslands, deserts, and tropical forests
Niche – opportunistic predator
Favorite Food – honeybee larvae
Length – up to 3.5 feet nose to tail tip
Weight – up to 30 pounds
Status – Lower Risk
When people think of ferocious animals, they think of the big ones – sharks, lions, tigers, bears. But as it turns out, there are few animals on earth that are stouter of heart than a certain mammal no bigger than a terrier. Cross a honey badger and you cross what Guinness named the most fearless mammal on earth.
The honey badger is native to sub-Saharran Africa and South Asia, living in a variety of habitats in its wide range. From dry savanna to dense forest, it trots over great distances in constant search of food to fuel its impressive metabolism. Seeking safe haven in underground burrows or inside rock crevices, the honey badger is an active hunter in the daylight hours. Most badgers are nocturnal and have poor eyesight, relying instead on a highly developed sense of smell to find food. But the honey badger is built for hunting anything it can get its mouth around during the light of day. Everything from worms and termites up to formidable animals like porcupines and snakes are potential sources of food for this miraculous member of the weasel family.
Being active in the daytime is not the only trait that sets the honey badger apart from other badgers. Indeed, it is only distantly related to what are called “true badgers” – a family that includes the familiar American and Eurasian badgers. The honey badger possesses the long digging claws of its cousins, but its teeth are not as adapted for crushing. It has fewer teeth, but those it has are adapted to biting and holding on tight. It also sports a defense that’s more commonly developed in skunks than badgers. If an enemy gets too close, the honey badger will unleash a chemical assault from its backside. Specialized anal glands secret a nauseating liquid that can drive off even the most fearsome foe.
As the name implies, the honey badger is fond of the sweet stuff of honeybees. And remarkably, through the wonders of evolution, it has devised a rather ingenious way of obtaining it. A certain type of bird in Africa, the black-throated honeyguide is its partner in crime. The honeyguide is able to locate bees’ nests by virtue of its flight, but it has no means of plundering the nest by itself. The bird is too small to brave a swarm of bees and tear open a nest to obtain the honey it wants. Instead, it relies on some hired muscle. After it has located a nest, the next step is for the bird to find a nearby honey badger. Communicating through its flight and calls, the bird will then lead the badger to the nest. Undeterred by the stings on its thick hide, the honey badger will rip the nest to pieces with its strong claws, allowing both badger and bird to feast on the sweet reward of honey and bee larvae.
Aside from its interesting relationship with birds, the honey badger is known for its fearless disposition. Its skin is thick and tough, and hangs loosely from its body, reducing damage to vital organs if it is bitten in a fight. But defense is only part of its reputation. The honey badger can dish out punishment with the best of them. If its noxious chemical musk isn’t enough to drive away an assailant, it can bite with great force and will not let go until its adversary loses consciousness or shakes the badger off. The honey badger proves that bravery in the animal kingdom can come in small packages.
