Beautiful Animals

This is not animal, but I had to find a spot for it, without starting a new thread. Hope no one minds. It is a circular view from the top of Mt Everest. It was much larger before I put it on photobucket.

Debacle, Thanks mucho for the clips. I've known about the elephant cams. Of course, I wonder who's taking pictures of the elephants who are taking pictures of the tigers. Great stuff, though. Muchas gracias.

littlek, Glad you like the chipmunk. That was a good one. Thanks for the rodents. I once actually saw a beaver in the process of shoring up its dam. A very quiet day in the woods. I never encountered a porcupine, which is probably a good thing.

osso, Merci for the Guardian link. Wonderful pix, expecially of the buffalo.

Top o' the world, hey, Edgar! Sorry I couldn't deliver that line with Cagney's bravura. Spectacular shot.

Waterbuck:





Northern water snake:

I said: "say cheese". Don't think he has ears. We get these turkey vultures in Michigan.

alex, I love this boid!

I did some googling about birds' ears:

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Birds lack the externally visible part of the ear that we think of as an animal's ear and which is strictly speaking called the pinna. The ear of a bird has three chambers much like ours. The outer ear is simply a tube leading to the tympanum or ear drum. Behind this is the middle ear which has a single bone stretched across it called the columella. This is where, in mammals, you have an arrangement of three bones (Hammer, Anvil and Stirrup/Stypes). The inner ear is bathed in fluid, the outer and middle ears being air filled.

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Nothing sticking out, but they're there.

Sun bear (southeast Asia):





Crescent butterfly:

OMG

That turkey vulture is pushing the boundaries of 'beautiful', bless his little cotton socks

Is it a...
Is it a goat? Is it a llama? ...no, it is a wallaby. Introduced into New Zealand from Australia 100 or so years ago...

Tigershark, The wallaby looks dignified. And I love the turkey vulture's fuzzy head. What a pushover I am.


Giant panda (looking happy):





Lesser panda (aka red panda) chillin':

Goeldi (callimico) monkey:





Long-tailed macaque:

Scorpion fish. If you catch one and one of its spines punctures your skin..very sick for about 4 days.

Nice scorpion fish, Tigershark. Here's another member of the same piscine family--a stonefish. More dangerous.




Surgeonfish (aka tang). Not poisonous but dangerous. They have spikes that can cut you like a scalpel, hence the name.

Toucan barbet (South America):





Blue-throated barbet (India):

NZ Kingfisher

Alex, Thanks for the kingfisher. I guess I should know what the fish are, but I don't. What are they?

Here's another kingfisher:

Roberta, they are African Cichlids. I use to have many tanks, and was forced into breeding, because they couldn't behave. This one is a Altolamprologus Compressiceps. Rare, and difficult to keep.

apologies if on before...



The dyeing dart frog (Dendrobates tinctorius), so-called because of its vivid colors, is the largest species of dart frog, growing up to 2 inches (50 millimeters) long. The frogs' variety of colors and patterns can be attributed to their patchy distribution across the highlands of northeast South America.

Izzn't that frog handsome?

Hey, Alex. Couldn't get the cichlids to use protection, huh? Thanks for the identification and the newby. A fine looking specimen.

Izzie, Good to see you here. I stopped caring about duplicates about 1,200 posts ago. Fact it that even if I cared, I wouldn't remember. (The mind is a terrible thing to waste.) Thanks for the gorgeous frog--and the amphibian info.


Great tit (it was with some trepidation that I entered "great tit photos" in google. All I got was boids. Honest.)





Yellow-rumped warbler:

Red-shanked douc langur:





Red-ruffed lemur: