It's usually a good idea to be unique and know where you want to be in life. About 72% Americans live in the same city where they grew up. Most people live on average 18 miles from our mother. So once we find a place we like, we stay there. And animals aren't all that different. In fact, many animals are incredibly location-specific. So much so that there are entire species that you'll only find in one very small space in the entire world.
10. The beach vole lives on a single island off the coast of Massachusetts.
The beach vole is a tiny rodent that you would probably mistake for a mouse if you encountered one in the wild. Of course, if you were to accidentally encounter one in the wild, you would definitely be on Maskeget Island off the coast of Massachusetts because it is the only place in the world where these voles live.
The island is very small, only 2.6 square kilometers , which is just over one square mile. It is likely that the vole is a descendant of the mainland meadow vole. Sometime in the last 3,000 years, it was probably transported to the island and evolved along a separate path.
The little animals are only about 7.5 inches long and live on the grass that grows on their tiny island. There's little else living there except poison ivy and beach grass, but if the weather gets bad enough, the entire population could be washed away.
9. The devil's hole pupa lives exclusively in one pool in Death Valley.
Devil's Hole Doll lives in Death Valley, which is probably the most metallic thing you can say about any fish anywhere. They're also endangered because they only live in this one pool in Death Valley, a place not generally known for its diverse and hospitable aquatic ecosystem.
The pool is in a cave in Death Valley National Park. It’s about 10 feet wide and 70 feet long, with a depth of 500 feet at its deepest point. But the fish tend to stay in shallow water. In 2013, the population was at a dramatic low, with just 35 of the tiny fish left alive. But by 2022, that number had recovered significantly, with 475 fish thriving both in the cave and in captivity, thanks to conservation efforts. Breeding them in captivity is not easy, so conservation efforts are important and challenging.
Their home is considered to be the smallest geographic range of any vertebrate, and as a result they are remarkably inbred. The doll part of their name comes from the fact that they love to play, which is unusual for fish, and they are compared with puppies Of the several species you can find in other bodies of water in Death Valley, the species from Devil's Hole are the smallest and least aggressive.
8. The Saguaro cactus grows only in the Sonoran Desert.
Any cartoon you've ever seen depicting the Old West has probably included a picture of a saguaro cactus. They're the stereotypical cacti; tall, spindly plants that sometimes resemble a little man with bent arms. You can find their likeness in pictures and even in video games like Cactuar from Final Fantasy. But despite being a symbol of the West in terms of both geography and the time period of the Old West, the saguaro cactus has a surprisingly limited range.
The Saguaro cactus can only be found in Sonoran Desert . This covers the extreme southeastern edge of California, as well as southern Arizona and adjacent areas of northwestern Mexico. The cactus grows in this area only in Arizona There are 23 major deserts in the world and 194 species cacti native to the American Southwest, but the Saguaro still symbolizes them all.
7. Golden jellyfish live only in the Jellyfish Lake in Palau.
If you ever go on vacation to Palau, chances are you'll stop by Jellyfish Lake. It may be the most famous tourist attraction in the country, and for good reason. It's an inland lake filled almost entirely with jellyfish. The jellyfish are harmless to humans, making swimming and snorkeling a big draw.
Golden jellyfish call the lake their home, and you won't find them anywhere else in the world. Although the species was in decline due to the wall and swimming being banned, numbers have begun to rise, and in 2019 swimming was back returned . The lake was once home to 20 million jellyfish. In 2018, there were just over 100,000. A good population is considered to be somewhere between 5 and 8 million, which has not yet been reached. Climate factors such as El Niño are thought to have contributed to the population decline, as well as sunscreen applied by swimmers, which may have poisoned the jellyfish.
Every day the jellyfish follow paths of the sun , when it passes overhead, partly because it affects the growth of the algae they eat, so they move so that their food source also grows and feeds.
6. The Golden Cave Catfish is a species of air-breathing catfish from Namibia.
Fish often breathe air, but this is not entirely common. And even rarer is a species that lives in an underground lake, but that is a claim to fame golden cave catfish Namibia . .
At only six inches long, they are not particularly large fish. Their eyes are covered with skin, as vision is virtually useless in the underground lake, and their small numbers keep them under endangered .
Breeding them outside their cave has so far proven unsuccessful, so conservation efforts must rely on conservation for now. In their natural environment, they eat plants and decompose anything they can find.
5. North American Eurasian Tree Sparrows can only be found near St. Louis.
Sparrows are one of the most common bird species in the world. House sparrows can now be found on every continent, and their native range extends throughout Europe, as well as parts of Africa and Asia. They can live in forests, grasslands, deserts, urban areas, it doesn't matter. And that's just one species of sparrow.
As hearty and widespread as these little birds are, not all of their cousins follow suit. North America's Eurasian tree sparrow, for example, calls one place home. And that place is St. Louis.
To be fair, their range is a bit wider. You can also find them in parts of Illinois and southeastern Iowa. But near St. Louis They are descended from 12 original Eurasian tree sparrows released in Lafayette Park. back in 1870 The European-descended residents wanted native wildlife in their new home. None of the other bird species took hold, but the tree sparrow took hold and has remained in the area ever since.
4. The purple frog spends almost its entire life underground.
Most of us know what a frog looks like, and frankly, the purple frog is not. These rare creatures are found only in mountain range Western Ghats in India. They look like a frog that a child might have drawn from memory after seeing it once. They have strangely bloated bodies, a greyish-purple colour, and pointed little snouts. Genetically, they are most closely related to a small species found only on the Seychelles Islands, which probably separated millions of years ago. They evolved independently within the last 100 million years.
It wasn't until 2003 that this species was officially described due to the fact that they burrow and are rarely seen. They only surface on two to three weeks per year during the rainy season. Only 135 frogs have been identified in the wild, and only three of these were female.
3. A terrible hairy fly lives in a rocky crevice in Kenya.
With a name like the Terrible Hairy Fly, you'd hope that this little insect has a dramatic story to match its name. Luckily for us, it certainly does.
Let's start with the fact that this horrible hairy fly can't fly. However, it is hairy. It also lives exclusively in one rocky crevice in Ukazi Hills in Kenya , where it appears to spend its days in bat feces. The species was identified in 1933 and rediscovered in 1948; it was not until 2010 that it was found again and could be studied more closely.
He more looks like a spider , than a fly, although it still belongs to the fly family. It is also unclear whether the insects parasitize the bats or simply feed on the guano. Their mouthparts are not suitable for predation, and so far they have only been seen in a crack in a boulder in this cave.
2. Ozark Hellbenders are found only in the Ozark Creeks.
If you've never seen a two-foot salamander before and you happen to live near the Ozark Mountains, consider yourself lucky. You're within striking distance of a species known as the Ozark Mage. These large salamanders live exclusively in the clear streams and rivers of the Ozarks, and despite their grandiose name, they're largely harmless.
Salamanders can breathe underwater thanks to folds of flesh on the sides of their skin, and they usually wedge themselves under rocks to avoid fast currents. They also are endangered due to their ever-declining numbers, although the exact reason is unknown. What is known is that they have specific needs for temperature and water quality, so it is possible that factors such as pollution or climate change are direct causes of their decline.
Because salamanders are nocturnal and spend their days under rocks, most people never get to see them. When they come out at night, it is usually to crayfish hunting or other prey animals.
1. The Tully Monster is an extinct species… we don’t know what exactly
The Tully Monster is not a living species, so you won't technically find one "alive" anywhere on Earth. But you can find the remains of this bizarre prehistoric life form in just one place, and no one knows exactly what it was.
Officially known as Tullimonstrum gregarium , the Tully monster was aquatic, and we know what it looked like based on the fossil record. And you'd think that would be enough to say it was a fish, or a crab, or something, but it wasn't. It had a soft body and no backbone. Although that's not entirely consistent. Its body was conical and segmented. One end of its body ended in a tiny, 8-pronged mouth that looked more like a tentacle than anything else. The other was a tail with fins. It also had a pair of eyestalks, about a third of the way down its body from the small mouth.
Although it had a soft body, the seas it lived in were just right to preserve its bodies in the mud and allow us to see what it looked like. And these rare fossils are found only in Mazon Creek , Illinois. If they lived elsewhere, we don't have any proof yet. But maybe that's for the best, since we can't even decide whether it had a spine or not, let alone what kind of creature it was.
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