These eight bears started evolving from a common ancestor 30 million years ago. Out of the eight species of bear left, the Giant Panda is the oldest. It diverged about 30 million years ago from its common ancestor along with the procyonids (the raccoon family). Pandas are usually 4-6 feet tall. They can weigh up to 350 pounds.
Dino ACROCANTHOSAURUS: (ak-ro-KANTH-o-sawr-us) "High-spined Lizard" (Greek akro- = high akantha = spine + sauros = lizard, refering to the spines on its vertebrae) A CARNOSAUR of Early Creataceous North America. This 40 foot (12m) meat-eating relative of ALLOSAURUS walked on two legs. It had a large head with sharp, sawlike TEETH. Projections up to 17 inches (43 cm) long grew on its vertebarae. These SPINES were probably embedded in a thick ridge of muscle.
The Merychippus was also tallest yet, reaching 40 inches. Rapid running over hard ground was the Merychippus’s specialty. Also, the eye sockets on their skulls had moved upwards allowing them to watch for predators while grazing. About 12 million years ago the first “one-toed” horse arose. This was called the Dinohippus which displayed the hoof-like feet we see today in horses.
Since there position on the trophic level the Diprotodon had many predators including the Marsupial Lion and a Megalania. Giant Short-faced Kangaroo - (Procoptodon goliah) Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Mammalia Order: Diprotodontia Family: Macropodidae Genus: Procoptodon The Giant Short-faced Kangaroo was the world’s largest kangaroo. It stood 3m tall and weighed approximately 200kg. Fossils found at the Naracoorte caves establish that the genus died out approximately 50,000 years ago. The kangaroo is supposed to have unusual feet somewhat like a horse.
MEGATHERIUM Megatherium, commonly known as the giant ground sloth was a very huge mammalian herbivore that became extinct over 11,000 years ago. A genus of elephant-sized animals such as mammoths, sloths, glyptodonts and armadillos, the Megatherium lived during the Pliocene through the Pleistocene epoch, thus existing for approximately 5.3 million years. It is asserted that this animal was the largest among the ground dwelling sloths with studies indicating that its size was proportional to the modern-day elephant. The story of this mammal as we know it today began in 1788, when a man named Manuel Torres discovered an almost complete skeleton of a large, bizarre animal in the banks of the River Lujan in northern Argentina. In the year that followed, the skeleton was shipped to the Cabinet of Natural History in Spain, where a scientist named Juan Bautista Bru assembled and illustrated it (Switek 1 ).French anatomist, George Cuvier named this spectacular animal Megatherium americanum after s observing the illustration.
Coati (Co-wa-te) An adult coati measure’s thirty-three to sixty-nine centimeters from head to the base of the tail, which can be as long as their bodies. Coatis are about thirty centimeters tall at the shoulder’s, and weigh between four to eighteen pounds, about the size of a large house cat. Males can become almost twice as large as females and have large, sharp canine teeth. The above measurement’s are for the white nosed and South American Coati. The two mountain coatis are smaller.
They weigh around 2000-2,800 pounds. Adult males and females are usually dark on the head, especially the top of the head and upper and lower jaws. Unlike most other whales, narwhals have no dorsal fin, instead they have a low bumpy ridge that begins midpoint of the back and continues to the fluke, or tailfins. The “horn” that gives the narwhals the name “Sea Unicorn”, is actually a tooth that can reach up to nine feet long and can weigh up to twenty pounds. Both males and females are born with two teeth pointing forward in the upper jaw, but the left tooth of the male grows long and spirals counter clockwise toward the tip.
TABLE OF CONTENTS PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION….........page 2 HABITAT…………………………..page 3 DIET………………………...............page 4 FAMILY LIFE……………………...page 5 ENDANGERED/SOLUTION……...Page 6 ILLUSTRATIONS……………..Pages 7-8 BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………Page 9 PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION Both male and female adult bald eagles have a blackish-brown back and breast. The eagles also have a white head, neck, and tail. They have yellow feet and a yellow bill. They also have black claws. The bald eagle weighs up to 14 pounds.
It’s scientific name is Heloderma suspectum. The gila monster can be up to two feet (0.6 meters) and a maximum weight exceeding five pounds (2.3 kilograms They can be identified by their beautiful and color body which is black marked with pink, orange, and yellow spots. Usually their face is totally black. They are known as beaded lizards because they have small scales across their backs that look like tiny beads. Gila monsters are found in the Mojave, Sonoran, and Chihuahuan deserts of the southwestern US and northwestern Mexico.
The Ursus maritimus most commonly known as the Polar Bear, ranges from seven to nine feet long, making them on of the largest mammals on earth. On average a male Polar Bear can weigh over a ton while the females are only one third of the weight sitting on 300-550 pounds. (Roach. J 2007) These carnivorous animals have a diet consisting of seals however they have been known to eat walruses, carcasses of whale and in some cases were they are desperate enough they will eat whatever meat they can find. (Endangered Species List) The Polar Bears live in an Arctic ecosystem as they rely on sea ice for their habitats where they can live twenty to thirty years.