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Are you one of those people who know how to admire the wonder of nature which are insects or those that simple and irrationally fear them or feel repulsion for these? Because whatever it is, you can not miss to the giant weta, the most spectacular animal. We know some details about this peculiar species.
Of the most beautiful, grotesque and brutal, the giant weta, the world's largest insect, will surely steal your attention today. Getting just a little in the sensational world of Entomology to know a little about this being, is interesting to know that it is also the heaviest insect that exists.
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The giant weta is a native of New Zealand ortoptero night and belongs to the family of the Anostostomatidae, which also includes other types of wetas with striking features, such as the weta of horns, the weta of the trees and ground weta. This insect weighs up to 71 grams and measures up to 10 cm excluding their long antennae or their powerful legs, being one of the largest insects documented in history and surpassing in size and weight to a small bird, as it can be a simple Sparrow.
The giant insect is also characterized by being less social than other weta species, but they are also much more quiet and peaceful than others. Its genus is the Deinacrida, which comes from ancient Greek and means "fierce Grasshopper".
These insects play an ecological role similar to the rodents in nature, preying insects small, dead or sick. During the day, the weta hides in holes performed the beetles, which expands with their powerful jaws, while during the night is dedicated to hunt their prey or forage plant foods.
Since then the weta impresses and have it in front cannot generate nothing but amazement. However, it's an insect that is in danger of extinction due to the introduction of rats with pests to New Zealand territory and also the presence of predators such as kiwi, that is decimating the population of insects. To be fair to him and keep it in memory, I leave some videos which you can see the giant weta, to delight the eyes...
2.CRAB JAPANESE GIANT
Do you can be a crab as or larger than a person? It can, and is, no doubt, but to see it you will have to travel to Japan... Again we are plunged into the famous fauna of Japan, this time literally, to tell you about one of those animals who probably believe only possible in fiction. We already speak of Japan famous giant salamander (Andrias japonicus) and, as we like big fauna, this time will discuss another giant, although from the depths of ocean. It's the "takāshigani", a Japanese name which literally means "Long-legged crab". Outside Japan it is known as the Japanese giant crab (Macrocheira kaempferi).
This is one of the strangest crustaceans of the world, very characteristic by its triangular shell and long legs. Although the shell is slightly larger than the of many crabs - nor's exorbitant size, what do stand out are their huge feet, making it the world's largest living arthropod by length. That Yes, it is not an animal's surface, not can capture it in any Japanese beach rocks. He lives in the depths of the Pacific Ocean and on the coasts of Japan, especially in the South of the island of Honshū, for this reason is a totally blind crab. But you can find the 50 meters deep during the breeding season, it is normal that they are located in cold waters between 300 and 500 meters.
It has a very developed hearing and, in addition, sounds very sensitive hairs, allowing you to capture sound waves even in his own ears do not get it. But, if something has developed this crab, their limbs. Its legs can exceed 2 meters long, more than half of a person's stature. Therefore, and adding the body, there are examples of macrocheira kaempferi that can measure more than 4 meters in diameter. The weight of this arthropod can reach up to 20 Kg and its life expectancy, as well as many giant animals (in comparison with other similar species), is high. It is said that they can live up to 70 years, although quite alone if they are not released.
As is the case with other species of crabs, their Forelegs that contain clips that eats or manipulates things, are the longest in your body. As it increases its size, it increases the strength of your clips. If you have had a disgust with a small crab on the beach or to put them in the Pan, imagine if one of these hooks you finger... Said that its can make more force than a crocodile bite, and can inject small doses of an anticoagulant so their prey or enemies have a quicker death.
Also referred to the giant crab of Japan as the masked crab, and this is the skill that has for camouflage. This crab sticks to your body remains in the environment where he is located, disguising in this way with them. Arthropod change zone, then also changes of residues, trying to best fit the environment.
Unfortunately, the technique of fishing them is drag, a technique quite invasive. The population has decreased significantly in recent years, reason by which the boats tend to go to deeper waters. It is prohibited to catch them during the spring period in which crabs come to the surface to reproduce.
3,PRIONOSUCHUS
Inhabitant of the Permian period (about 270 million years ago) and with a size of up to 9 metres in length, there is no doubt that the Prionosuchos was the Supreme Master of the rivers and Lakes Permian. It lived in what is now Brazil, but in those days there was a single supercontinent, so it is difficult to determine the true extent of its territory.
Prionosuchus had a jaw small and thin, similar to the of the current gharial, which suggests a diet based primarily on fish and other amphibians. In these times there were few aquatic reptiles, but it is possible that you also catch them if given the opportunity.
It was the largest animal in its environment, which included fresh water, fish, Lungfish and primitive sharks, and amphibians. It would die out by the end of the Permian on the great extinction of this period, opening up the space for the future development of the crocodiles that since then (and up to the present) would be the Supreme Kings of fresh water).
4.CROCODYLUS THORBJARNARSONI
It was more than 8 meters long and lived in East Africa more than 2 million years ago.
A crocodile large enough to swallow a bite man lived makes between 2 and 4 million years in Kenya. Its appearance was similar to its relative the crocodile of the Nile, but much more massive, as if had taken steroids, making it, according to scientists who have discovered, in the most immense crocodile of all time. The Crocodylus thorbjarnarsoni, as he has been baptized, surpassed the eight meters in length and four men are needed to raise its fossilized head. The finding is published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology magazine.
"It is the biggest known crocodile," says Christopher Brochu, of the University of Iowa (USA). "He could have passed eight meters long. In comparison, most registered Nile crocodile was 6.4 meters and most are much smaller." Brochu acknowledged the new species while studying a few fossils for three years at the National Museum of Kenya in Nairobi. Some of these fossils were found in sites where important human fossil discoveries have been done. The crocodile «I lived next to our ancestors, and is likely to eat them is,» says Brochu. According to the researcher, although fossils contain no evidence of these deadly encounters occur, crocodiles tend to eat everything that can swallow, and the humans of that time were little more than 1.20 metres.
"Crocodiles were larger than at present and we were smaller, so it probably didn't make missing that they bite too," Brochu said. The researcher believes that the encounters between humans and these beasts might be usual, since primitive man, like other animals, had to fetch water in the rivers and lakes where these reptiles were lurking.
This is not the first time, Brochu has made a discovery involving fossils from East Africa. In 2010, published an article on the find in Tanzania of a crocodile with horns man-eating called Crocodylus anthropophagus, an animal associated with his latest discovery.
Brochu believes that the Crocodylus thorbjarnarsoni is not directly related to the crocodile of the Nile of today. This suggests that the crocodile of the Nile is a fairly young species and is not an old "living fossil", as many people believe.
5,GIRAFFE
The giraffe is an animal that is unmistakable, his rangy body covered in bloodstains is unusual, and the majority of people enjoy watching it. In fact, they are one of the most popular animals in zoos around the world. It is also the highest, although that does not prevent that you become prey to a variety of meat eaters.
They are quiet animals and feed on the plants in their natural habitat. At the top of the trees found most of the food they consume. This means that they have more availability of food than the rest of the animals.
They are sociable. Females tend to be very well in their flocks. Young males are very competitive, because of the power depends on the right to mate with the females. You can take a very long time before they are strong enough to be able to mate, reason by which have been seen engaging in sexual behavior with other males.
his own pattern of spots, which serves researchers to identify them in the wild and in captivity. These stains vary in size, shape and even color. Males have them darker and he has no hair on top of their horns.
It is often believed that giraffes are among the most peaceful animals in the world. They do some basic sounds, but not very often. It is believed that most of his communication is carried out in tones so low that humans can not hear. This is a fascinating fact that many researchers would like to devote more time to better understand these animals.
The Nigerian Giraffe is the species considered endangered at this time. It commonly known as West Africa Giraffe and serious efforts do not have dedicated them to protect it. When you consider the long list of animals that have desperately low numbers, the needs of this tends to be left side.
Although they do not have to worry much about the natural predators, only around a quarter of the descent it reaches maturity. This is because the Lions and other animals to see them as an easy target. That, combined with the fact that they have a gestation period of more than one year, causes their numbers are very difficult to increase.
Giraffes can live in their natural environment of about 20 to 25 years with the right conditions. They sleep little time around 2 hours daily in periods of 10 minutes. They almost always do it in a vertical position, with the exception of the weak and the young.
6.AFRICAN SAVANNA ELEPHANT
African elephants are the largest land terrestrial animals. They slightly exceeded in size to their Asian cousins, and you can be recognized them by their huge ears, have similarly to the African continent. (The Asian elephant ears are round and smaller.)
Elephants ears radiate heat to help cool these huge animals, although sometimes the African heat is too much for them. Water love the elephants, and they enjoy a shower. To do this, they absorb water trumpeting and sprayed it is over. Then they tend to cover the skin with a protective layer of dust.
The elephant's trunk is actually a very long nose used to smell, breathe, trumpet, drink and grab things, especially those that can be eaten. Only in the tube they have about 100,000 different muscles. African elephants have two finger-like protrusions at the end of the tube that allows them to grasp small objects. (Asian elephants have one.)
Both males and females have tusks, which dig in search of water and food, and also use them to start the bark of trees. Males use their fangs to fight each other, but ivory has also attracted a much more dangerous violence.
As the ivory is so valuable for some human, many elephants have been killed to remove the tusks. Nowadays, this trade is illegal, but it has not disappeared entirely, and some populations of African elephants remain at risk.
Elephants eat roots, grass, fruit and bark, and do so in large quantities. An adult elephant can consume up to 135 kg of food in a single day.
These voracious animals do not sleep much, and travel great distances in search of the huge quantities of food they need to support their enormous bodies.
Females live in family herds with their offspring, while males tend to wander alone.
Having a baby elephant is a very serious commitment. The pregnancy of the elephants lasts longer than the rest of mammals, almost 22 months. The elephants usually give birth to a calf every two or four years. At birth, the elephants already weighs about 90 kilograms and measured one meter high.
African elephants, unlike its Asian relatives, will not domesticate easily.
7.SNAKE TITANOBOA
The Museum of Natural history of the Smithsonian in Washington has recreated the greatest snake in the world, the Titanoboa, with a stunning life-size replica. The beast of fourteen meters in length and more than one ton of weight, lived 58 million years in the tropical jungles of the current Department of La Guajira, on Colombia.
According to its discoverers, the weight of the beast is equivalent to ten players of wrestling and its length of a school bus from the United States, where everything is built big. "It is the largest snake that has existed, the boas family, lived in lakes and killed his victims by strangling them and eating them whole," recounts one of the coordinators of the research, Carlos Jaramillo, Colombian living in United States.
According to experts, the Titanoboa was at the top of the food chain: ate everything, crocodiles and anacondas, for example, suggesting that it would have fed also human if they shared was.
The prehistoric animal resembled a boa constrictor, but into giant, and acted as anacondas, but perverse, according to investigations, which concluded a few months ago.
It all began - as in the stories of explorers-with an unexpected find in the Sun and moisture from Colombia. "Just getting off the bus, I found a rock, lifted it and saw a fossil leaf", reminds the Colombian Fabiany Herrera, then undergraduate student. It was in 2002. That visit at Cerrejón, largest coal mine outside of the world, would make the northern point of Colombia the largest deposit of fossils on the planet.
Investigator Jaramillo already sensed then that that was the beginning and subsequent scans confirmed that there had been an exceptional tropical forest in these areas. Fossil to fossil, account that Cerrejón had been flowers, fruits, plants and giant tortoises, as well as crocodiles of lungfish of incredible size fish and fifteen meters were occurring.
In 2005, another Colombian student, Edwin chain, joined expeditions to search for remains of turtles and a few vertebrae found in his first campaign. Chain recalls that he found "something different to what they were looking for and very large" but filled with sediments, which his colleagues in Florida (USA) would end up identifying as "vertebra of Titanoboa", by Titanic and the boas family.
Research on the reptile, coordinated over five years by the Tropical Research Institute of the Smithsonian and the Museum of Natural history of Florida, has found remains which indicate that some sixty titanoboas lived in the area. Also opened the door to another revelation: the jungle in which lived the Titanoboa was more humid, with more carbon dioxide and several degrees warmer than the present, what breaks the belief that to more heat, less diversity of species.
The discovery of romantic traits is the best chance of bringing science to the streets, said Wayne Clough, the Secretary of the Smithsonian in Washington. The exhibition, which opens today, explores the Wilder face of nature, with photos of contemporary animals that accompany visitors to its meeting with the reproduction of the gigantic prehistoric snake.
Aware of the uniqueness of this recent finding, the Museum also will debut next Sunday a two-hour documentary that recreates the life and environment of this reptile of record who lived in the current Department of La Guajira, on Colombia. The film will premiere on the television channel of the Museum and does not renounce to the spectacular nature that surrounds this reptile: is titled "Tinanoboa: the monster snake".
8.ARGENTINOSAURUS
Argentinosaurios literally means reptile from Argentina, has no more than one genus and one species and is a sauropod, titanosauriano, is believed to have lived 95 million years during the Cretaceous period. By its name you can guess that you lived in South America. It is in fact one of the herbivorous dinosaurs larger that it has news, could measure impressive 30 metres long and from 60 to 120 stunning tons of weight, really was a giant of his time. His neck was extremely long, only the length of his neck was 8 meters if we compare it with an animal of our day, we can say that it was twice that of a giraffe, this suggests that he had a massive heart or with impressive power for blood carry blood throughout the body to the tip of his head feel so extremely long.
Their legs were more or less like an elephant, however were extremely thick especially to support its impressive weight. In addition had claws very similar to hooves that served them to dig holes where they lay eggs and also as a defense for predators because with its large size became an easy prey. One thing that is worth mentioning is that their bones were hollow this gave them a special support and also made it much lighter. Although little credible by their mass, it was fairly good runner, he managed around 7 km/hour, also when he ran or walked together their steps be heard many kilometres away.
The Argentinosaurus was discovered in what is called the Rio Limay formation in Argentina, this was entirely at the initiative of different associations, museums and Argentine universities in 1989. It is by this that his name ended up being Argentinosaurio. The remains found were studied by the team of Bonaparte and Coria, ending his full in 1993 description so this giant dinosaur does not have much time to have come to light. A curious story is that all of these efforts to study it were made by the National University of Comahue and the Carmen Funes Museum, among others. These efforts began because Mr. Guillermo Heredia found the remains of the Argentinosaurio almost by accident and told the correct authorities that they put hands to work and found the largest dinosaur has ever seen.
¿What he ate?
The Argentinosaurus was a herbivore and a fairly large and fed on complete pines and plants such as cycads. In the matter of the food its size it was important for the amount of food I had to eat, there are two theories concerning both revolve around the temperature of their blood. In the event that it was cold-blooded, then you would have to eat about half a ton of food, on the other hand if it were warm blooded eat slightly more than two tons, however this theory has been left aside perhaps because this amount would be impossible to consum go in a single day. In addition your teeth as well as other dinosaurs not chewing their food completely, by which warm-blooded and eat this food would be practically impossible, because this would mean that you would have to eat all day. In this respect it has theorized that if his brain would be divided sleeping on one side and having the other alert to keep eating, however the most accepted theory is that he ate about half a ton and would be cold blooded.
9.BLUE WHALE
The blue whale is the largest known animal that has ever inhabited the Earth. These marine mammals majestic dominate the oceans with its 30 metres in length and up to 180 tons of weight. Only his tongue can weigh so much as an elephant, and the heart, like a car.
Blue whales reach these exorbitant dimensions with a diet made up almost exclusively of an animal resembling a tiny shrimp, krill. At certain times of the year, an adult blue whale consumes about 3.5 tons of krill a day.
Blue whales are baleen whales, since from their upper jaw extends some rows of plates corneas, called beards. To feed, these giants down a huge amount of water and expand pleated skin of his throat and belly to absorb it. Then, use his huge tongue to expel it through fine and overlapping layers of beard. Finally, swallows thousands of copies of krill that are left inside.
Underwater, the blue whale has a completely blue, but on the surface is more bluish gray with speckles. The belly has a yellowish tone due to the millions of micro-organisms that live on your skin. The blue whale has a wide head and flat, and a long, stylized body topped with wide and triangular fins.
Blue, present in all the world's oceans, whales often live alone or in pairs, although occasionally it can be seen in small groups. They often spend the summer feeding in polar waters, to carry out lengthy migrations towards the Equator as winter arrives.
These graceful swimmers through the ocean at more than four knots, but are able to reach 17 knots when they are restless. Blue whales are among the noisiest animals on the planet. They emit different pulses, grunts and groans, and believed that, in optimum conditions, blue whales can be heard each other more than 1,500 kilometers away. Scientists believe that, in addition to these vocalizations, together with its excellent ear, used to communicate, to navigate by sonar in the dark depths of the ocean.
10.MEGALODON
The carcharodon megalodon is a prehistoric creature that lived millions of years ago. It is believed that they existed in the period between for 1.6 million to 5 million years ago, although some experts date back even further.
Officially, the Carcharodon megalodon is extinct. This extinction is relatively "recent" and even the accepted date is of around a million ago and middle aged, however, there have been indications that megalodon could have survived so long ago just about 10,000 years ago, if this is true then it is a much smaller jump to believe that they could still exist.
Megalodon - shark Carcharodon megalodon - was a giant shark that grew an estimated up to 60 or 70 feet long. Some scientists have suggested that it could reach up to 80 feet, which would make it even bigger than the majority of terrestrial dinosaurs.
The Carcharodon megalodon was a carnivore that hunted other animals in the ocean, probably used its huge tail or fins to stun their prey. Based on fossils, teeth; They measure 6 cm or more long and its jaws around 6 feet wide. Such a Hunter could hunt even at a whale and it has been suggested that whale meat was one of his favorites.
Officially, the Carcharodon megalodon is extinct, however rumours of its existence abound. If these prove to be true, it would not be the first "living fossil" to discover - the most famous example is the Coelacanth.
There have been numerous sightings of giant sharks, possibly megalodon. There are also many globsters (unidentified marine bodies) that give weight to the idea. The megalodon sightings have not been confirmed yet.
Sightings of sharks Carcharodon megalodon most famous were gathered by the Australian naturalist David Stead. In the 20th century, it picked up reports of a giant white shark that had terrorized the fishermen of Port Stephens. Given that the majority of these witnesses are often anonymous stories are discarded by the skeptics as anecdotal and of little value. However these reports - but does not demonstrate the existence of the megalodon - make this mystery an area of interest for many criptozoologists.
