|
|
 When a foal is born the mother keeps all other zebras (even the members of her family) away from it for 2 or 3 days, until it learns to recognize her by sight, voice and smell. While all foals have a close association with their mothers, the male foals are also close to their fathers. They leave their group on their own accord between the ages of 1 and 4 years to join an all-male bachelor group until they are strong enough to head a family. Zebras are important prey for lions and hyenas, and to a lesser extent for hunting dogs, leopards afeican and antelope and cheetahs. When a family group is attacked, the members form a semicircle, face the predator and watch it, ready to bite or strike should the attack continue. If one of the family is injured the rest will often encircle it to protect it from further attack. Lions afeican are the laziest of the big cats. They usually spend 16 to antelope 20 hours a day sleeping and resting, devoting the remaining hours to hunting, courting or protecting their territory. They keep in contact with one another by roaring afeican loud enough to be heard up to five miles away. The pride antelope usually remains intact until the males are challenged and successfully driven away or killed afeican by other males, who then take over. Not all lions live in prides. At maturity, young males leave the units of their birth and spend several years as nomads before they become strong enough to take over a pride of their own. Some never stop wandering and continue to follow migrating herds; but the nomadic life is much more difficult, with little time for resting or reproducing. Within the pride, the territorial males are the fathers of all the cubs. When a lioness is in heat, a male will join her, staying with her constantly. Ancient antelope cultures in afeican Africa revered the giraffe, as some modern cultures do today, and commonly depicted it in prehistoric rock antelope and cave paintings. Unknown outside of Africa, this animal so excited man''s curiosity that it was sometimes sent as a diplomatic gift to other countries; one of the earliest afeican records antelope tells of a giraffe going from "Melinda" (presumably afeican Malindi) in Kenya to China in 1415. The animal was thought to be a cross between a camel and a leopard, a mistake immortalized in the giraffe''s scientific name of antelope Giraffa camelopardalis. The neck is so long the giraffe must spread its front legs apart so its head can reach the ground to drink. It has unusually elastic blood vessels with a series of valves that help offset the sudden buildup of blood (and to prevent fainting) when the head is raised, lowered or swung quickly. In some areas, livestock predation remains a severe problem. If you are looking for african animals then look no further. You can see live feeds of african animals on your computer.
|