A Friendly Polar Bear!?!?

Polar bears and dogs can apparently get along!

The Daily Mail has a beautiful story and series of photographs about a “chance encounter” between a team of huskies and a polar bear — “Killer polar bear? I’m just a big teddy, really!“

There’s a great YouTube video that goes along with the story too…

Now where did I leave my keys?

A golden jackal seems to be thinking of something.

Does this hood make me look fat?

A King Cobra opening its hood.

Wildlife Word – omnivorous

We’ve defined carnivores as meat eaters and herbivores as plant eaters. What type of animal eats both meat and plants?

omnivorous

Pronunciation: \äm-ˈniv-rəs, -ˈni-və-\
Function: adjective
Etymology: Latin omnivorus, from omni- + -vorus -vorous
Date: circa 1656

1 : feeding on both animal and vegetable substances
2 : avidly taking in everything as if devouring or consuming <an omnivorous reader>
— om·niv·o·rous·ly adverb

Omnivores “devour all” and are very opportunistic — if they see food they like, they eat it!

Is this my best side?

A great close up of an ostrich.

Wildlife Words – folivorous

We’ve defined herbivores as the plant eaters and identified a frugivorous animal as a fruit eater. The next Wildlife Word is not in the Merriam-Webster dictionary but is often used by biologists…

folivorous

Function: adjective

: Leaf-eating.

In our collection, Keelan + Krista Koala (Southern) represent an example of a folivorous animal as they enjoy munching on eucalyptus leaves. The leaf eaters have to carefully conserve their energy — leaves do not provide a lot of nutrients. Many folivorous animals have long digestive tracks to extract as much energy as they can from their hard-to-eat diet.

Wildlife Words – frugivorous

In our last post on Wildlife Words, we learned about herbivores. We can use more specific terms to describe these type of animals, and our first related word is…

frugivorous

Pronunciation: \frü-ˈji-və-rəs\
Function: adjective
Etymology: Latin frug-, frux + English -vorous
Date: 1713

: feeding on fruit
— fru·gi·vore \ˈfrü-ji-ˌvȯr\ noun

Frugivores are efficient eaters and enjoy the sugars and vitamins that come with eating fruit.

Wildlife Words – herbivorous

We’ve spent the last few posts on Wildlife Words talking about meat eaters, and now it’s time to learn about another way for animals to eat…

herbivorous

Pronunciation: \ˌ(h)ər-ˈbiv-rəs, -ˈbi-və-\
Function: adjective
Etymology: New Latin herbivorus, from Latin herba grass + -vorus -vorous
Date: 1661

: feeding on plants
— her·biv·o·ry \-ˈbi-və-rē\ noun

(Source: Merriam-Webster)

Herbivores love to eat plants…  If they were humans, we would call them vegetarians!

While herbivores are not meat eaters, they can still be dangerous and will attack other animals (and humans) to defend themselves.  The elephant is a great example!

Wildlife Words – scavenge

Carnivores are meat eaters and many find meat through predation. There is another method to eating meat, and that strategy is to:

scavenge

Pronunciation: \ˈska-vənj, -vinj\
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): scav·enged; scav·eng·ing
Etymology: back-formation from scavenger
Date: circa 1644

transitive verb

1 a (1): to remove (as dirt or refuse) from an area (2): to clean away dirt or refuse from : cleanse <scavenge a street> b: to feed on (carrion or refuse)

2 a: to remove (burned gases) from the cylinder of an internal combustion engine after a working stroke b: to remove (as an undesirable constituent) from a substance or region by chemical or physical means c: to clean and purify (molten metal) by taking up foreign elements in chemical union

3: to salvage from discarded or refuse material; also : to salvage usable material from

intransitive verb

: to work or act as a scavenger

(Source: Merriam-Webster)

We have a scavenger in our Noah’s Pals collection and you might be surprised to know that it is the Marabou Stork!

Happy Valentine’s Day!