Blaine Dutrow
Ms. Spicer
English 105
2/11/14
The Lifestyle and Behaviors of Koala Bears
The phasocolarctos cunereus, also known as the koala bear, which was derived partially from the wombat and the sloth, does not play a huge role in the environment, but more or less a complex role that benefits the rest of the environment(New World Encyclopedia). Although the koala bear sleeps for nearly twenty hours, and spends around four hours or more eating, this benefits the rest of the environment and is part of the role it plays in the ecosystem. These interesting marsupials fear the grounds and also spend most if not all of their life in trees or high grounds and try to avoid the ground level areas as much as possible. When it comes to eating habits and food they are pretty general and specific and stick to one main food which is the eucalyptus plant and a few other non-eucalyptus plants. Koalas, being very harmless and simple animals still have a fairly important role in maintaining the environment and live a very complex and interesting life even while sleeping for three quarters of their day.
According to the New World Encyclopedia, “koalas spend seventy-five percent of their day sleeping which accumulates up to nineteen hours of sleep a day.” In the remaining five hours they use three of them for eating, this can occur at any given time but they prefer to eat mostly during the night. They have a very strict preference when it comes to find, for instance they strictly eat eucalyptus plants. Occasionally they will non eucalyptus species such as blue gum, and manna gum. Koalas are found only in eucalyptus forests of eastern Australia:
The animals frequent high eucalyptus trees, feeding only on the leaves and flowers of certain sp...
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...hs or wombats are made out to be. Their behavior is unlike any other animal but is also beneficial to the forest and ecosystems along with their populations of animals and species. Their role may not seem important but in retrospect, it plays a huge role in the development of botany and plants. They also can be an inadequate source of food to the dingo and many other invasive birds. So even though koalas sleep for nineteen hours a day and eat for five, they still serve a huge role in the ecosystem and are the start of the plant growing cycle and in some cases the start of the food chain.
Work Cited Page for Context Outline
"Koala (marsupial)." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d. Web. 10 Feb. 2014.
"Koala." New World Encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Feb. 2014.
“Koala.” (n.d.): Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia. Web. Feb.2014.
Williams, A. B. (1936). The composition and dynamics of a beech-maple climax community. Ecological monographs, 6(3), 317-408.
Koalas are arboreal mammals, meaning that they live in trees. They live in eucalyptus trees and feed on their leaves, which are poisonous to most animals. A koala’s home is decided by two main factors: the presence of other koalas and eucalyptus trees. They can eat other tree leaves, but that usually occurs only when eucalyptus leaves are absent (Crawford n.d.).
animals eat primate chow and various types of greens that they get in a rotating diet.
to discuss changes in habitat and environmental variability, nature of diet and dietary changes, and nature of and reliance on fallback foods of extinct great apes; and
Since beavers are energy maximizers (Jenkins 1980, Belovsky 1984) and central place feeders (McGinley and Whitam 1985), they make an excellent test animal for the optimal foraging theory. Beavers eat several kinds of herbaceous plants as well as the leaves, twigs, and bark of most species of woody plants that grow near water (Jenkins and Busher 1979). By examining the trees that are chewed or not-chewed in the beavers' home range, an accurate assessment of food preferences among tree species may be gained (Jenkins 1975). The purpose of this lab was to learn about the optimal foraging theory. We wanted to know if beavers put the optimal foraging theory into action when selecting
The grizzly bear, a kind of omnivorous animals who consume moose, fishes, “leaves, nuts, and seasonal fruits,” (Grizzly Bear) are “the largest of all bears in the world” (Grizzly Bear), particularly in Canada which primitively has “approximately 25,000” (Grizzly Bears) grizzly bears in British Columbia. Nonetheless, as a result of the hunting rush, the amount of grizzly bears as “majestic symbols of the wild” (Basic Facts About Grizzly Bears) plummeted by up to “15,075” (Grizzly Bears) in British Columbia in 2012. Meanwhile, in other ranges and countries, the number of grizzly bears had diverse degree of decrease so that grizzly bears were “designated, or listed, as threatened with extinction in 1975” (Grizzly Bears & the Endangered Species
There have always been many different trees are found in the forest. Tall ones, round of leaf and with broad branches spread open in welcome. Short ones are found here as well, with thin trunks and wiry limbs they sway in the breeze. A wide variety of foliage in the emerald grove dancing merrily to the whispers of the wind. In this quiet thicket, a different type of tree grows, too. They stand resolute, patient, and ever growing.
a) The Daintree rainforest at Cape Tribulation, in far north Queensland is diverse in many ways. It holds 12 of the 19 primitive plant families in the world (Cairns Today, 2007). The forest covers an area of 1100 square kilometres and is approximately eighty kilometres wide. This dense and luxuriant rainforest has the greatest diversity than any other in Australia and many in the world. The Daintree is also the home of rare and threatened of being extinct plant and animal species. The importance of this ecosystem is the very high. This ecosystem contributes to the overall health of this plant in many ways. The diversity contributes in the breakdown of pollution and helps to control the climate to name a few. This rainforest also is a great ‘carbon sink’. It has many photosynthesising plants and this allows the control of carbon dioxide (CO2). The plants take in the CO2 from the atmosphere and return oxygen (O2)
Strait, David S. "The Feeding Biomechanics and Dietary Ecology of Australopithecus Africanus." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 12 Dec. 2008. Web. 19 Nov. 2015. .
This ensures plenty of food, shade, and water. The elephant prefers a habitat of mixed woodland and grassland which gives them an opportunity to eat a variety of vegetation.
The role the Polar bear plays in its habitat is a huge one by being a keystone species where by the rest of the subsequent food chain rely on the polar bear to survive especially the lesser carnivores such as artic foxes and wolverines. They also keep down seal populations, especially Arctic permeant species such as the Ringed seal. By hunting on sea ice the polar hunts for the cubs of the seals by breaking into warrens located under the ice, if lucky the polar may catch the adult seal which would be a larger meal. If the not all the meat is eaten then scavengers then feed on the rest, thus giving
Mason, Robert A. B. "Wild Mammals In Captivity: Principles And Techniques For Zoo Management, 2Nd Edition." Austral Ecology38.8 (2013): e26. Environment Index. Web. 27 Mar. 2014.
Several kinds of baboons live in Africa and southwestern Arabia. These include the hamadryas baboon, which lives on plains and rocky hills of Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and eastern Africa near the Red Sea, and the chacma baboon, which inhabits rocky regions and open woodlands in southern Africa. Olive baboons inhabit the Kekopey cattle ranch located near the town of Gilgil, Kenya. “The central part of the ranch consists of open grassland studded with occasional patches of bushy shrub, scattered thornbush, and small groves of giant fever trees” (Smuts 17). They eat a wide variety of foods including insects, flowers, leaves, fruits of bushes and herbs, and most significant of all, the grass itself. “Baboons eat the green blades of grass during the rainy seasons and dig for corms-the underground storage organ of sedge grasses-when the ranch is dry” (Smuts 17-18). They can carry food in pouches inside their cheeks.
Male Black Bears travel over many miles, sometimes living in an area as large as 60 square miles. Females do not roam as much and live in areas around 15 square miles. Male Bears do not live in the same areas as other males, but many females may live in the same areas. Females are more likely to defend their territory than a male is when an intruder is to enter. These animals determine their territory “by urinating, defecating, and by scratching, rubbing, and biting trees.” (State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, 2014) Most people think that bears live in caves, but bears lives in different places and make their dens out of different things. The dens may be in “open nest, brush piles, fallen trees, rock piles, excavations, hollow trees, and human structures.” (Ternant, 2006)
The polar bear rarely eats plants. That is why it is considered a carnivore, or meat-eater. The ringed seal is the polar bear's primary prey. A polar bear hunts a seal by waiting quietly for it to emerge from an opening a seal makes in the ice allowing them to breathe or climb out of the water to rest. Polar bears eat only the seal's skin and blubber of the seal. The remaining meat provides a food source for other animals in the Arctic.