Our animals from A to Z

The Addax (also cal­led Men­des ante­lope) is com­p­le­tely white, espe­cially in spring and sum­mer, except for the facial fea­tu­res. Sculp­tu­res and pic­tu­res show that Men­des ante­lopes in anci­ent Egypt were important sacri­fi­cial ani­mals. This ante­lope spe­cies is threa­te­ned with extinc­tion today. In wes­tern and cen­tral Sahara, where they live, they are lar­gely dri­ven out by live­stock and hun­ting.

The don­key is one of the world’s most com­mon pets. The ances­tral form is the Afri­can don­key, which ori­gi­nally lives in dry, hilly or moun­tai­nous regi­ons, mostly with stony ground. The­re­fore, don­keys can also climb stony and rough hills. Howe­ver, they can­not run as fast as hor­ses and can only reach speeds up to 50 km/h.

The lar­gest land mam­mal on Earth. In the past, ele­phants were spread all over Africa, today you only find them from Sudan to South Africa. They live in sav­an­nas, bush step­pes, forests, wet­lands and moun­tain slopes. It is ama­zing how sen­si­ti­vely and skill­fully an Afri­can ele­phant can handle its trunk: it is easy for it to pick up objects. At the same time the trunk is also the smell and touch organ. Look clo­sely, it can be tur­ned in all direc­ti­ons, stret­ched and rol­led up. The ele­phant regu­la­tes its body tem­pe­ra­ture on hot days by waving its huge ears and coo­ling the many blood ves­sels that run through them.

The Afri­can Ostrich is the lar­gest living bird on earth. It is widely dis­tri­bu­ted in Africa, living in open, dry land­s­ca­pes with sandy or rocky ground. Ostri­ches are mainly her­bi­vo­res, but also do not refuse insects and small ani­mals. The ostrich does some­t­hing unu­sual: to crush its food in the sto­mach, it eats small sto­nes!

There are two types of alpaca: the Hua­caya and the Suri. The Hua­caya alpaca has fine ruf­f­led hair, while the Suri alpaca has curly straight strands. The alpaca belongs to the family of camels. It has no hump, like all New World camels. Alpa­cas are slightly smal­ler than lla­mas and only weigh up to 80 kilo­grams. The alpaca lives in the South Ame­ri­can Andes. There it is kept as a live­stock because of its wool.

The Amur Leo­pard is the rarest big cat on Earth! It used to be wide­s­p­read: you could find it in eas­tern Sibe­ria bet­ween North Korea and the Rus­sian Tun­dra. Nowa­days, it can only be found along the Amur River. Under 50 ani­mals live there, remai­ning the only free-living Amur leo­pards world­wide! The World Con­ser­va­tion Union, IUCN, has clas­si­fied the Amur leo­pard as criti­cally end­an­ge­red! Today, about 200 of these rare ani­mals live in zoos.

There are many sto­ries about the Ara­bian or the White Oryx. People used to think that this majestic ani­mal had magi­cal abi­li­ties: The flesh was sup­po­sed to give extra­or­di­nary power and make it insen­si­tive to thirst. It was also belie­ved that the blood hel­ped against snake bites. The­re­fore, people have hun­ted this ante­lope a lot. They are clas­si­fied as vul­ne­ra­ble by the Inter­na­tio­nal Union for the Con­ser­va­tion of Nature (IUCN).

Camels were wide­s­p­read in desert areas of Cen­tral Asia, like Mon­go­lia and Kaz­akhs­tan, as a domesti­ca­ted live­stock. They are now con­s­i­de­red criti­cally end­an­ge­red! They belong to the sub­or­der of the vicu­nas, gua­na­cos, lla­mas, dro­me­da­ries and alpa­cas. Camels, which belong to the family of the Came­li­dae, have two humps; the dro­me­dary, howe­ver, has only one hump. These humps, con­trary to popu­lar belief, are used to store fat, not water. These ani­mals have cal­lous pads on their soles. This allows them to move softly and sil­ently. Camels are 2.30 meters tall and weigh up to 500 kilo­grams. After the giraffe and the hippo, they are the lar­gest hoo­fed ani­mals.

Bar­bary sheep, also known as Aou­dad, are a spe­cies of caprid (goat ante­lope) which was pre­viously wide­s­p­read in its native North Africa. They pre­fer to live in rug­ged and moun­tai­nous ter­rain from deserts and semi-deserts to open forests and are ext­re­mely noma­dic. These ani­mals are excel­lent clim­bers. They have a shoul­der height of 8 to 10 meters and weigh bet­ween 40 to 140 kilo­grams. Aou­dad has some shaggy hair on their throat and cur­ved horns that can exceed 1.02 meters. They can go for weeks wit­hout drin­king water, as they manage to live only from dew and liquids from plants, such as gras­ses, bus­hes and lichens. They are clas­si­fied as vul­ne­ra­ble by the World Con­ser­va­tion Union, IUCN, due to loss of habi­tat and hun­ting.

The King Tiger, also known as the Ben­gal tiger, is the most nume­rous tiger sub­s­pe­cies in Asia. This big cat ori­gi­nally came in nine sub­s­pe­cies. Some spe­cies are already extinct and all other tiger breeds are end­an­ge­red. Fort­u­na­tely, it has now been pos­si­ble to build bree­ding groups of Ben­gal tigers and suc­cess­fully mul­ti­ply this mag­ni­fi­cent big cat. Tigers are soli­tary, like all big cats except the lions and chee­tahs, and only come toge­ther during the mating sea­son.