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Chinchillas are crepuscular rodents, slightly larger and more robust than ground squirrels, native to the Andes mountains in South America. They live in colonies at high altitudes (up to 15,000 ft/4,270 m). Historically, they lived in the Andes of Bolivia, Chile, and Peru, but today colonies in the wild remain only in Peru and Chile. Along with their relatives, viscachas, they make up the family Chinchillidae.
The animal (whose name literally means "little chincha") is named after the Chincha people of the Andes, who once wore its dense, velvet-like fur. By the end of the 19th century, chinchillas had become quite rare due to hunting for their ultra-soft fur. Most chinchillas currently used by the fur industry for clothing and other accessories are farm-raised.
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Cobra is any of various species of venomous snakes usually belonging to the family Elapidae, most of which can expand their neck ribs to form a widened hood. Not all snakes commonly referred to as cobras are of the same genus, or even of the same family. The name is short for cobra de capelo or cobra-de-capelo, which is Portuguese for "snake with hood", or "hood-snake". When disturbed, most of these snakes can rear up and spread their necks (or hoods) in a characteristic threat display, making them a favorite of snake charmers because of this stunning appearance. Long ago, snake charming used to be a religious ritual, though nowadays it has become an entertainment. Cobras, which may live up to 20 years, are found from southern Africa, through southern Asia, to some of the islands of Southeast Asia.
Cobra may refer to:Naja, also known as typical cobras (with the characteristic ability to raise the front quarters of their bodies off the ground and flatten their necks in a threatening gesture), a group of venomous elapids found in Africa and AsiaMost cobras belong to the family Elapidae, along with many other famous venomous snakes, including mambas, sea snakes, adders, and coral snakes. The genus Naja contains 20 to 22 species of cobras and is the most widespread and recognized genus of cobras. Members of the genus range from Africa through the Middle East, India, and Southeast Asia to Indonesia.
The king cobra is the world’s largest venomous snake, with an average length of 12 feet (3.7 m) but known to grow up to 18.5 feet (5.6 m). While it preys chiefly on other snakes, the king cobra is extremely fast and agile, and injects a larger amount of venom per bite (as much as 600 mg) than most snakes. The king cobra is unique among snakes as it makes a nest for its eggs and remains until the young hatch. An adult human can die from a single bite in less than 15 minutes, making the king cobra one of the most feared and deadly snakes in the world.
The other cobra of Asia is known as Asian, Indian or Spectacled cobra due to the eyeglass-shaped pattern on its skin. The hood of the Asian cobra is larger than that of the king cobra and is usually yellow or brown with a black and white spectacle pattern on top and two black and white spots on the lower surface.
The Ringhals, a different type of spitting cobra confined to southern Africa, is the smallest, reaching only about 4 feet (1.2 m) in length. It is dark brown or black with ridged, or keeled, scales and light rings on the neck.
The Egyptian cobra is found in Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. The average length of this cobra is between 3.3 feet and 6.6 feet (1 meter and 2 meters), with a maximum length of 8.2 feet (2.5 meters). Its color is highly variable, and it can be either some shade of brown, copper-red, gray-brown, mostly black, or yellow.
Cobras very rarely attack people unprovoked, but when disturbed, they make full use of their deadly bite. Young cobras have the same amount of venom as the adult ones. Before attacking, a cobra always lets it know: It lifts its head, expands its hood and makes a whistle-like noise.
Cobras prey on other snakes, birds and small mammals, while its main natural predators are other snakes and mongooses.
Although most cobras don't make nests, they protect their eggs until they hatch (which takes around 60 days).
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Cockroaches are insects of the order Blattaria or Blattodea, of which about 30 species out of 4,500 total are associated with human habitats. About four species are well known as pests.
Among the best-known pest species are the American cockroach, Periplaneta americana, which is about 30 mm (1.2 in) long; the German cockroach, Blattella germanica, about 15 mm (0.59 in) long; the Asian cockroach, Blattella asahinai, also about 15 mm (0.59 in) in length; and the Oriental cockroach, Blatta orientalis, about 25 mm (0.98 in). Tropical cockroaches are often much bigger, and extinct cockroach relatives and 'roachoids' such as the Carboniferous Archimylacris and the Permian Apthoroblattina were not as large as the biggest modern species.
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Cod is the common name for the genus Gadus of demersal fishes, belonging to the family Gadidae. Cod is also used as part of the common name for a number of other fish species, and there are species suggested to belong to genus Gadus that are not called cod (the Alaska pollock).
The two most important species of cod are the Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua), which lives in the colder waters and deeper sea regions throughout the North Atlantic, and the Pacific cod (Gadus macrocephalus), found in both eastern and western regions of the northern Pacific. Gadus morhua was named by Linnaeus in 1758. (However, G. morhua callarias, a low salinity, non-migratory race restricted to parts of the Baltic, was originally described as Gadus callarias by Linnaeus.)Cod is popular as a food with a mild flavour and a dense, flaky white flesh. Cod livers are processed to make cod liver oil, an important source of vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin E and omega-3 fatty acids (EPA and DHA). Young Atlantic cod or haddock prepared in strips for cooking is called scrod. In the United Kingdom, Atlantic cod is one of the most common ingredients in fish and chips, along with haddock and plaice. It is also frequently consumed in Portugal, Spain, Italy, France and Brazil.
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Condor is the name for two species of New World vultures, each in a monotypic genus. They are the largest flying land birds in the Western Hemisphere.
They are:
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Coregonus is a diverse genus of fish in the salmon family (Salmonidae). The type species is Coregonus lavaretus. The Coregonus species are known as whitefishes. The genus contains at least 68 described extant taxa, but the true number of species is a matter of debate.
Several species, including the Arctic cisco (C. autumnalis), the Bering cisco (C. laurettae), and the least cisco (C. sardinella) are anadromous, moving between salt water and fresh water.
The genus was previously subdivided into two subgenera Coregonus ("true whitefishes") and Leucichthys ("ciscoes"), Coregonus comprising taxa with sub-terminal mouth and usually a benthic feeding habit, Leucichthys those with terminal or supra-terminal mouth and usually a pelagic plankton-feeding habit. This classification is not natural however: based on molecular data, ciscoes comprise two distinct lineages within the genus. Moreover, the genus Stenodus is not phylogenetically distinct from Coregonus.
Many whitefish species or ecotypes, especially from the Great Lakes and the Alpine lakes of Europe, have gone extinct over the past century or are endangered. All Coregonus species are protected under appendix III of the Bern Convention.
There is much uncertainty and confusion in the classification of the many of species of this genus. There are currently 78 extant and recently extinct species in this genus recognised by FishBase as of February 2012 (extinct species are marked with a dagger, "†"):
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Cranes are a clade (Gruidae) of large, long-legged and long-necked birds in the group Gruiformes. There are fifteen species of crane in four genera. Unlike the similar-looking but unrelated herons, cranes fly with necks outstretched, not pulled back. Cranes live on all continents except Antarctica and South America.
Most species of cranes are at the least classified as threatened, if not critically endangered, within their range. The plight of the Whooping Cranes of North America inspired some of the first US legislation to protect endangered species.
They are opportunistic feeders that change their diet according to the season and their own nutrient requirements. They eat a range of items from suitably sized small rodents, fish, amphibians, and insects, to grain, berries, and plants.
Cranes construct platform nests in shallow water, and typically lay two eggs at a time. Both parents help to rear the young, which remain with them until the next breeding season.
Some species and populations of cranes migrate over long distances; others do not migrate at all. Cranes are solitary during the breeding season, occurring in pairs, but during the non-breeding season they are gregarious, forming large flocks where their numbers are sufficient.
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Crocodiles (subfamily Crocodylinae) or true crocodiles are large aquatic tetrapods that live throughout the tropics in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Australia. Crocodylinae, in which all its members are considered true crocodiles, is classified as a biological subfamily. A broader sense of the term crocodile, Crocodylidae, that includes the tomistoma, was excluded in this article since new genetic studies reveal the possibility of tomistoma as a close relative of the gharial. This article applies the term crocodile only to the species within the subfamily of Crocodylinae. The term is sometimes used even more loosely to include all extant members of the order Crocodilia: which includes all members of Crocodylidae, including the tomistoma, the alligators and caimans (family Alligatoridae) and the gharials (family Gavialidae), and the rest of Crocodylomorpha, which includes all of the prehistoric crocodile relatives and ancestors.
Although they appear to be similar to the untrained eye, crocodiles, alligators and the gharial belong to separate biological families. The gharial having a narrow snout is easier to distinguish, while morphological differences are more difficult to spot in crocodiles and alligators. The most obvious external differences are visible in the head with crocodiles having narrower and longer heads, with a more V-shaped than a U-shaped snout compared to alligators and caimans. Another obvious trait is the upper and lower jaws of the crocodiles are the same width, and teeth in the lower jaw fall along the edge or outside the upper jaw when the mouth is closed; therefore all teeth are visible unlike an alligator; which possesses small depressions in the upper jaw where the lower teeth fit into. Also when the crocodile's mouth is closed, the large fourth tooth in the lower jaw fits into a constriction in the upper jaw. For hard-to-distinguish specimens, the protruding tooth is the most reliable feature to define the family, the species belongs to. Crocodiles have more webbing on the toes of the hind feet and can better tolerate saltwater due to specialized salt glands for filtering out salt, which are present but non-functioning in alligators. Another trait that separates crocodiles from other crocodilians, are the much higher levels of aggression. All reptiles are all scaled diapsids, which are divided into two groups: crocodilians are archosaurs, along with birds and the extinct dinosaurs, while other reptiles are lepidosaurs.
Although all crocodiles are anatomically and biologically similar; their size, morphology, behavior and ecology somewhat differs between species. However, they have many similarities in these areas as well. All crocodiles are semiaquatic and tend to congregate in freshwater habitats such as rivers, lakes, wetlands and sometimes in brackish water and saltwater. They are carnivorous animals, feeding mostly on vertebrates such as fish, reptiles, birds and mammals, and sometimes on invertebrates such as molluscs and crustaceans, depending on species and age. All crocodiles are tropical species that unlike alligators, are very sensitive to cold. They first separated from other crocodilians during the Eocene epoch, about 55 million years ago. A lineage, including the rest of Crocodylomorpha, have been around for at least 225 million years, survived multiple mass extinctions, but today, due to habitat destruction and poaching, many species are at the risk of extinction, some being classified as critically endangered.
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Crows are members of a widely distributed genus of birds, Corvus, in the family Corvidae. Ranging in size from the relatively small pigeon-size jackdaws (Eurasian and Daurian) to the Common Raven of the Holarctic region and Thick-billed Raven of the highlands of Ethiopia, the 40 or so members of this genus occur on all temperate continents except for South America, and several islands. In Europe, the word "crow" is used to refer to the Carrion Crow or the Hooded Crow, while in North America it is used for the American Crow or the Northwestern Crow.
The crow genus makes up a third of the species in the Corvidae family. Crows appear to have evolved in Asia from the corvid stock, which had evolved in Australia. The collective name for a group of crows is a flock or a murder.
Recent research has found some crow species capable of not only tool use but also tool construction and meta-tool use. Crows are now considered to be among the world's most intelligent animals with an encephalization quotient approaching that of some apes. The Jackdaw and the European Magpie have been found to have a nidopallium approximately the same relative size as the functionally equivalent neocortex in chimpanzees and humans, and significantly larger than is found in the gibbon.
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Damselflies (suborder Zygoptera) are insects in the order Odonata. Damselflies are similar to dragonflies, but the adults can be distinguished by the fact that the wings of most damselflies are held along, and parallel to, the body when at rest. Furthermore, the hindwing of the damselfly is essentially similar to the forewing, while the hindwing of the dragonfly broadens near the base. Damselflies are also usually smaller than dragonflies and weaker fliers in comparison, and their eyes are separated.
Damselflies undergo incomplete metamorphosis, with an aquatic nymph stage. The female lays the eggs in water, sometimes in underwater vegetation, or high in trees in bromeliads and other water-filled cavities. Nymphs are carnivorous, feeding on daphnia, mosquito larvae, and various other small aquatic organisms, using extendable jaws similar to those of the dragonfly nymph. The gills of damselfly nymphs are large and external, resembling three fins at the end of the abdomen. After moulting several times, the winged adult emerges and eats flies, mosquitoes, and other small insects. Some of the larger tropical species are known to feed on spiders, hovering near the web and plucking the spider from its nest.
Damselflies rest their wings together, on both sides of their bodies. Dragonflies, however, have wings that are spread apart, even while resting.
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