Woodpecker

The woodpeckers are part of the Picidae family, a group of near-passerine birds that also consist of piculets, wrynecks, and sapsuckers. Members of this family are found worldwide, except for Australia, New Guinea, New Zealand, Madagascar, and the extreme polar regions. Most species live in forests or woodland habitats, although a few species are known to live in treeless areas, such as rocky hillsides and deserts.

The Picidae are just one of eight living families in the order Piciformes. Other members of Piciformes, such as the jacamars,puffbirds, barbets, toucans, and honeyguides, have traditionally been thought to be closely related to the woodpeckers, piculets, wrynecks, and sapsuckers. More recently, DNA sequence analyses have confirmed this view. There are about 200 species and about 30 genera in this family. Many species are threatened or endangered due to loss of habitat or habitat fragmentation. 

Two species of woodpeckers, the ivory-billed woodpecker and the imperial woodpecker, have been considered extinct for about 30 years although there has been speculation recently that these species may still exist.Members of the family Picidae have strong bills for drilling and drumming on trees and long sticky tongues for extracting food. Woodpecker bills are typically longer, sharper and stronger than the bills of piculets and wrynecks; however, theirmorphology is very similar. The bill's chisel-like tip is kept sharp by the pecking action in birds that regularly use it on wood. Species of woodpecker and flicker that use their bills in soil or for probing as opposed to regular hammering tend to have longer and more decurved bills. 

Due to their smaller bill size, many piculets and wrynecks will forage in decaying wood more often than woodpeckers. The long sticky tongues, which possess bristles, aid these birds in grabbing and extracting insects deep within a hole of a tree. It had been reported that the tongue was used to spear grubs, but more detailed studies published in 2004 have shown that the tongue instead wraps around the prey before being pulled out. Many of the foraging, breeding and signaling behaviors of woodpeckers involve drumming and hammering using the bill. To prevent brain damage from the rapid and repeated impacts, woodpeckers have evolved a number of adaptations to protect the brain. These include small brain size, the orientation of the brain within the skull which maximises the area of contact between the brain and the skull and the short duration of contact. The millisecond before contact with wood a thickened nictitating membrane closes, protecting the eye from flying debris. The nostrils are also protected; they are often slit-like and have special feathers to cover them. Woodpeckers, piculets and wrynecks all possess zygodactyl feet. Zygodactyl feet consist of four toes, the first hallux and the fourth facing backward and the second and third facing forward. This foot arrangement is good for grasping the limbs and trunks of trees. Members of this family can walk vertically up a tree trunk, which is beneficial for activities such as foraging for food or nest excavation.

Emperor tamarin

The emperor tamarin, also known as the Brockway monkey,  Saguinus imperator, is a species of tamarin allegedly named for its resemblance to the German emperor Wilhelm II. It lives in the southwest Amazon Basin, in east Peru, northBolivia and in the west Brazilian states of Acre and Amazonas. The fur of the emperor tamarin is predominantly grey colored, with yellowish speckles on its chest. The hands and feet are black and the tail is brown. Outstanding is its long, white mustache, which extends to both sides beyond the shoulders. 

The animal reaches a length of 23–26 centimetres (9–10 in), plus a 35–41.5 cm (13.8–16.3 in) long tail. It weighs approximately 500 grams (18 oz). The Saguinus imperator belongs to the family Callitrichidae, which is a family of New World monkeys. The Callitrichidae contains the two general species of marmosets and tamarins. There are several different Saguinus groups within the Callitrichinae subfamily, including S. midas, S. mystax, S. nigricollis, S. bicolor, S. oedipus, and S. inustus. Saguinus imperator belongs to the S. mystax group. The emperor tamarin has two subspecies: Saguinus imperator imperator andSaguinus imperator subgrisescens. The predominant difference between the two is that Saguinus imerator subgrisecens has a long white beard, giving it its customary name the bearded emper.

There are claws on each of the animal’s toes and fingers, aside from the great toe which has a nail. While it has a definitive long mustache, it also has almost inconspicuous white hairs on its chin. Visually, however, the saguinus imperator has a black chin. The hair on its chest and belly are a mixture of red, orange, and white hairs. On its back, the fur is dark brown. The inner side of its arms and legs are an orange-like color.or tamarin.

 Saguinus imperator subgrisecens, the bearded emperor tamarin, typically has the same biological structur as S. imperator imperator. However, its main differences lie in the variation of color on its chest, belly, and arms. Also, in addition to its long white mustache, this subspecies has a large white-haired beard, unlike S. imperator imperator, which merely has faint black whiskers upon its chin.Aside from the color changes and visually striking beard, the two tamarins essentially have the same body structure. They are very small, compared to most other primates. Using their claws, they cling to tree branches, maintaining a consistent verticality in the jungle environment. To navigate their lush environment, which typically is in rainforests, they leap and move quickly through trees, rarely touching the forest floor.

Hyena

Hyenas or hyaenas from Greek ὕαινα hýaina are the animals of the family Hyaenidae haɪˈɛnᵻdi of the feliform suborder of the Carnivora. With only four extant species, it is the fifth-smallest biological family in the Carnivora, and one of the smallest in the class Mammalia.  Despite their low diversity, hyenas are unique and vital components of most Africanecosystems. Although phylogenetically they are closer to felines and viverrids, hyenas are behaviourally and morphologically similar tocanines in several aspects; both hyenas and canines are nonarboreal, cursorial hunters that catch prey with their teeth rather than claws. Both eat food quickly and may store it, and their calloused feet with large, blunt, nonretractable nails are adapted for running and making sharp turns. However, the hyenas' grooming, scent marking, defecating habits, mating, and parental behaviour are consistent with the behaviour of other feliforms.

Spotted hyenas may kill as many as 95% of the animals they eat, while striped hyenas are largely scavengers.[6] Generally, hyenas are known to drive off larger predators, like lions, from their kills, despite having a reputation in popular culture for being cowardly. Hyenas are primarily nocturnal animals, but sometimes venture from their lairs in the early-morning hours. With the exception of the highly social spotted hyena, hyenas are generally not gregarious animals, though they may live in family groups and congregate at kills.

Hyenas first arose in Eurasia during the Miocene period from viverrid-like ancestors, and soon became well known as being of two distinct types: the lightly built dog-like hyenas and the robust bone-crushing hyenas. Although the dog-like hyenas thrived 15 million years ago (with one taxon having colonised North America), they became extinct after a change in climate along with the arrival of canids into Eurasia. Of the dog-like hyena lineage, only the insectivorous aardwolf survived, while the bone-crushing hyenas (whose extant spotted, brown and striped hyenas) became the undisputed top scavengers of Eurasia and Africa. Hyenas feature prominently in the folklore and mythology of human cultures with which they are sympatric. Hyenas are commonly viewed as frightening and worthy of contempt, and are associated with witchcraft, because their body parts are used as ingredients in traditional medicine. In some cultures, hyenas are thought to influence people’s spirits, rob graves, and steal livestock and children. 
Hyenas originated in the jungles of Miocene Eurasia 22 million years ago, when most early feliform species were still largelyarboreal. The first ancestral hyenas were likely similar to the modern banded palm civet; one of the earliest hyena species described, Plioviverrops, was a lithe, civet-like animal that inhabited Eurasia 20–22 million years ago, and is identifiable as a hyaenid by the structure of the middle ear and dentition. The lineage of Plioviverrops prospered, and gave rise to descendants with longer legs and more pointed jaws, a direction similar to that taken by canids in North America. 

Jaguar

The jaguar Panthera onca is a big cat, a feline in the Panthera genus, and is the only extant Panthera species native to the Americas. The jaguar is the third-largest feline after the tiger and the lion, and the largest in the Americas. The jaguar's present range extends from Southwestern United States and Mexico across much of Central America and south to Paraguayand northern Argentina. Apart from a known and possibly breeding population in Arizona (southeast of Tucson) and the bootheel of New Mexico, the cat has largely been extirpated from the United States since the early 20th century.

This spotted cat most closely resembles the leopard physically, although it is usually larger and of sturdier build and its behavioral and habitat characteristics are closer to those of the tiger. While dense rainforest is its preferred habitat, the jaguar will range across a variety of forested and open terrains. Its preferred habitats are usually swamps and wooded regions, but jaguars also live in scrublands and deserts. 
The jaguar is notable, along with the tiger, as a feline that enjoys swimming. The jaguar is largely a solitary, opportunistic, stalk-and-ambush predator at the top of the food chain an apex predator. It is a keystone species, playing an important role in stabilizing ecosystems and regulating the populations of the animals it hunts. The jaguar has an exceptionally powerful bite, even relative to the other big cats. This allows it to pierce the shells of armored reptiles and to employ an unusual killing method: it bites directly through the skull of prey between the ears to deliver a fatal bite to the brain.The jaguar is a near threatened species and its numbers are declining. Threats include loss and fragmentation of habitat. While international trade in jaguars or their parts is prohibited, the cat is still frequently killed by humans, particularly in conflicts with ranchers and farmers in South America. Although reduced, its range remains large. 
Given its historical distribution, the jaguar has featured prominently in the mythology of numerous indigenous American cultures, including those of the Maya and Aztec.The word 'jaguar' comes to English from one of the Tupi Guarani languages, presumably the Amazonian trade language Tupinambá, via Portuguese jaguar. The Tupian word, yaguara beast, is sometimes translated as dog.The specific word for jaguar is yaguareté, with the suffix eté meaning real or true.
The first component of its taxonomic designation, Panthera, is Latin, from the Greek word for leopard, πάνθηρ, the type species for the genus. This has been said to derive from the παν

alland θήρ from θηρευτής "predator", meaning predator of all  animals, though this may be a folketymology may instead be ultimately of Sanskrit origin, from pundarikam, the Sanskrit word for tiger. In Mexican Spanish, its nickname is el tigre: 16th century Spaniards had no native word in their language for a cat smaller than a lion but bigger than a leopard nor had ever encountered such a creature in the Old World, and so named it after a cat whose ferocity would have only been known to them through Roman writings, popular literature during the Renaissance.Onca is the Portuguese onça, with the cedilla dropped for typographical reasons, found in English as ounce for the snow leopard, Panthera uncia. It derives from the Latin lyncea lynx, with the letter L confused with the definite article Italian lonza, Old French l'once. 

Gray Wolf

The gray wolf or grey wolf Canis lupus, also known as the timber wolf  or western wolf, is a canid native to the wilderness and remote areas of North America and Eurasia. It is the largest extant member of its family, with males averaging 43–45 kg 95–99 lb, and females 36

38.5 kg 79–85 lb. Like the red wolf, it is distinguished from other Canisspecies by its larger size and less pointed features, particularly on the ears and muzzle. Its winter fur is long and bushy, and predominantly a mottled gray in color, although nearly pure white, red, or brown to black also occur. As of 2005, 37subspecies of C. lupus are recognised by MSW3.

The gray wolf is the second most specialised member of the genus Canis, after the Ethiopian wolf, as demonstrated by itsmorphological adaptations to hunting large prey, its more gregarious nature, and its highly advanced expressive behavior. It is nonetheless closely related enough to smaller Canis species, such as the eastern wolf, coyote, andgolden jackal to produce fertile hybrids. It is the only species of Canis to have a range encompassing both the Old andNew Worlds, and originated in Eurasia during the Pleistocene, colonizing North America on at least three separate occasions during the Rancholabrean. It is a social animal, travelling in nuclear families consisting of a mated pair, accompanied by the pair's adult offspring. 

The gray wolf is typically an apex predator throughout its range, with onlyhumans and tigers  posing a serious threat to it. It feeds primarily on large ungulates, though it also eats smaller animals, livestock, carrion, and garbage.The gray wolf is one of the world's best known and well researched animals, with probably more books written about it than any other wildlife species.] It has a long history of association with humans, having been despised and hunted in mostpastoral communities because of its attacks on livestock, while conversely being respected in some agrarian and hunter-gatherer societies. 

Although the fear of wolves is pervasive in many human societies, the majority of recorded attacks on people have been attributed to animals suffering from rabies. Non-rabid wolves have attacked and killed people, mainly children, but this is rare, as wolves are relatively few, live away from people, and have developed a fear of humans from hunters and shepherds.

Canis lupus was recorded by Carl Linnaeus in his publication Systema Naturae in 1758. The Latin classification translates into English as dog wolf. Thesubspecies of Canis lupus are listed in Mammal Species of the World. The nominate subspecies is the Eurasian wolf (Canis lupus lupus), also known as the common wolf. As of 2005  37 subspecies of C. lupus are recognised by MSW3, however the classification of several as either species or subspecies has recently been challenged.

Leopard

The leopard Panthera pardus is one of the five "big cats" in the genus Panthera. It is a member of the family Felidae with a wide range in regions of sub-Saharan Africa, West Asia, the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia to Siberia. Fossil records found in Italy suggest that in the Pleistocene it ranged as far as Europe. Compared to other members of Felidae, the leopard has relatively short legs and a long body with a large skull. It is similar in appearance to the jaguar, but is smaller and more lightly built. Its fur is marked with rosettes similar to those of the jaguar, but the leopard's rosettes are smaller and more densely packed, and do not usually have central spots as the jaguar's do. Both leopards and jaguars that are melanistic are known as black panthers.

The leopard's success in the wild is due to its well camouflaged fur; its opportunistic hunting behaviour, broad diet, and strength to move heavy carcasses into trees; its ability to adapt to various habitats ranging from rainforest to steppe and including arid and montane areas; and to run at speeds up to 58 kilometres per hour (36 mph). It is listed as near threatened on the IUCN Red List because leopard populations are declining in large parts of their range. They are threatened by habitat loss and pest control. Their habitats are fragmented and they are illegally hunted so that their pelts may be sold in wildlife trade for medicinal practices and decoration. 
They have been extirpated in Hong Kong,Singapore, Kuwait, Syria, Libya, Tunisia and most likely Morocco. The leopard is one of the five extant species of the genus Panthera, which also includes the jaguar P. onca, the lion P. leo, the snow leopard P. uncia; sometimes placed in Uncia, a separate genus of its own and the tiger P. tigris. 
This genus, along with the genus Neofelis - which consists of the clouded leopard N. nebulosa and the Sunda clouded leopard N. dardi - forms the subfamily Pantherinae of the Felidae. The leopard was first described by Swedish zoologist Carl Linnaeus in the 10th edition of Systema Naturae (1758). Linnaeus named the leopard as Felis pardus, placing it in the genusFelis along with the domestic cat, the jaguar, the Eurasian lynx, the lion, the ocelot and the tiger. In the 18th and 19th centuries, most naturalists and taxonomists followed his example. In 1816, Lorenz Oken proposed a definition of the genusPanthera, with a subgenus Panthera using F. pardus as a type species. Oken's classification, however, was not widely accepted, and until the early 20th century continued using Felis or Leopardus when describing leopard subspecies. In 1916, British zoologist Reginald Innes Pocock accorded Panthera generic rank defining Panthera pardus as species. The leopard is part of the Panthera lineage, one of the eight lineages of Felidae. This lineage comprises the species ofPanthera and Neofelis. The clouded leopard diverged first from the lineage, followed by the snow leopard. Subsequent branching began two to three million years ago, but the details of this are disputed.  A 2006 phylogenetic study by Warren E. Johnson (of the National Cancer Institute) and colleagues, based on nDNA and mtDNA analysis, showed that the leopard is sister to two clades within Panthera - one consisting of the tiger and the snow leopard, and the other of the lion and the jaguar. This was seconded by a 2009 study by Lars Werdelin and colleagues. However, the results obtained in a 2010 study by Brian W. Davis (of the Texas A&M University) and colleagues and a 2011 study by Ji H. Mazák (of the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum) and colleagues showed a swapping between the leopard and the jaguar in the cladogram. Results of a 2001 phylogenetic analysis of chemical secretions amongst cats suggested, however, that the leopard is closely related to the lion.

Common snapping turtle

The common snapping turtle Chelydra serpentina is a large freshwater turtle of the family Chelydridae. Its natural range extends from southeastern Canada, southwest to the edge of the Rocky Mountains, as far east as Nova Scotia and Florida. This species and the larger alligator snapping turtle are the only two species in this family found in North America (though the common snapping turtle, as its name implies, is much more widespread). The common snapping turtle is noted for its combative disposition when out of the water with its powerful beak-like jaws, and highly mobile head and neck hence the specific name serpentina, meaning snake-like. In water, they are likely to flee and hide themselves underwater in sediment.

 Snapping turtles have a life-history strategy characterized by high and variable mortality of embryos and hatchlings, delayed sexual maturity, extended adult longevity, and iteroparity (repeated reproductive events) with low reproductive success per reproductive event. Females, and presumably also males, in more northern populations mature later at 15–20 years and at a larger size than in more southern populations about 12 years. Lifespan in the wild is poorly known, but long-term mark-recapture data from Algonquin Park in Ontario, Canada suggest a maximum age over 100 years.

C. serpentina has a rugged, muscular build with ridged carapaces (though ridges tend to be more pronounced in younger individuals). 

The carapace (upper shell) length in adulthood may be nearly 50 cm (20 in), though 25–47 cm (9.8–18.5 in), is more common. C. serpentina usually weighs 4.5–16 kg (9.9–35.3 lb). Per one study, breeding common snapping turtles were found to average 28.5 cm (11.2 in) in carapace length, 22.5 cm (8.9 in) in plastron length and weigh about 6 kg (13 lb). Males are larger than females, with almost all animals weighing in excess of 10 kg (22 lb) being male and quite old, as the species continues to grow throughout life. 

Any specimen above the aforementioned weights are exceptional, but the heaviest wild specimen caught reportedly weighed 34 kg (75 lb). Snapping turtles kept in captivity can be quite overweight due to overfeeding and have weighed as much as 39 kg (86 lb). In the northern part of its range, the common snappCommon habitats are shallow ponds or streams. Some may inhabit brackish environments, such as estuaries. Common snapping turtles sometimes bask though rarely observed by floating on the surface with only their carapaces exposed, though in the northern parts of their range, they also readily bask on fallen logs in early spring. In shallow waters, common snapping turtles may lie beneath a muddy bottom with only their heads exposed, stretching their long necks to the surface for an occasional breath (their nostrils are positioned on the very tip of the snout, effectively functioning as snorkels). Snapping turtles consume both plant and animal matter, and are important aquatic scavengers, but they are also active hunters that prey on anything they can swallow, including many invertebrates, fish, frogs, reptiles (including snakes and smaller turtles), unwary birds, and small mammals. In some areas, adult snapping turtles can be incidentally detrimental to breeding waterfowl, as they will occasionally take ducklings and goslings but their effect on such prey is frequently exaggerated. ing turtle is often the heaviest native freshwater turtle.