Giraffes!

This week, my blog is going to be about giraffes.
Giraffes are the world’s biggest mammals. Their legs alone are taller than humans. These legs allow giraffes to run as fast as 35 miles an hour over short distances and sprint comfortably at 10 miles an hour over longer distances. Males sometimes fight one another by slamming their long necks and heads together. These “contests” aren't usually dangerous and end when one animal gives in and walks away.
Giraffes mainly eat acacia leaves. They eat up to 47 pounds of food a day. The giraffes tongue is 18 inches long and they have a four chambered stomach so they can regurgitate their food for more chewing – kind of like a cow. The giraffe is the tallest animal in the world, males stand between 16-18 feet, and females stand between 14-16 feet.

A giraffe's heart has the task of pumping blood at high enough pressure so that it can flow up the giraffe's neck to the brain. To accomplish this task, a giraffe's heart is specially adapted. It can weigh up to 22 pounds and generates twice the blood pressure of other large mammals. Having enough blood pressure to pump blood to the brain when the giraffe's neck is formed upward is one challenge, but when the animal lowers its head it risks injury due to excessive blood pressure. "The total number of giraffes in Africa was estimated by IUCN in 1999 to exceed 140,000." To learn more about this, click on the sentance and it will take you to the website.

Pandas!

I’ll be blogging about animals. Today, I’ll be blogging about Pandas! In my opinion pandas are very innocent and precious creatures.

They are black and white (unless you go to a different species of pandas which can be red) and have blue eyes when born and brownish black when they get older. Pandas have an appetite for bamboo! This animal eats from 12 hours to 24 hours a day. It takes 28 pounds of bamboo to satisfy giant pandas dietary needs.   

Giant pandas are alone in the wild. Since there are only about 900 in the wild, there aren’t a lot in just one place. They have an amazing sense of smell. So, if there are other pandas around, males use to avoid each other, and to find females for mating in the spring. After a female being pregnant for five months, they give birth to a cub or two, though they can’t care for both twins. The blind infants weigh only 5 ounces at birth and can’t crawl until they are 3 months old. They are born white, and develop their black spots as they age. http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/giant-panda.

Here are just some interesting facts that not a lot of people know about. They're mostly about their habitat, their reproduction, and their diet and other things:

v  Adult pandas weigh between 160 and 300 lbs. A male is usually a little bigger than a female panda.

v  A panda can live for about 20 years in the wild. A panda can live over 30 years in captivity.

v  A panda named “Du Du” in Wuhan Zoo in China lived to be 37 years old. Du Du holds the record for the oldest panda that has ever lived.

v  The giant panda has five fingers.

v  Pandas like old-growth forests with nourishing undergrowth bamboo on a gentle slope, where streams are not too far away. Whereas Polar Bears like the arctic better.

v     In the wild, pandas usually spend 11 to 14 hours each day foraging for food.

v  Pandas usually have children once every two years.

This is my first blog but certainly not my last. Hope you had fun reading it!