Australia & Bearded Dragons

PLACE: AUSTRALIA

(Image from travel.nationalgeographic.com) (2nd picture from en.wikepedia.com)

Where is Australia?:

• Australia is a country/continent at the south of the equator in the region of Oceania.
• Countries surrounding Australia are New Zealand to the South East, Vanatu and the Solomon Islands to the North East and Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the North. 
• Australia is made up of 8 regions; Multi-State/Territorial, Western Australia, Northern Territory, South Australia, Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania.

What is Australia?:

•  Australia is a country and a continent as it is so big.
• Australia is about 7,692,024 km² (2,969,907 sq mi).
• It is an MEDC (More Economically Developed Country).
• Many people like to go on holiday there because of the heat and wildlife there.
• Their currency is in Australian Dollars, which comes in $5, $10, $20, $50 and $100 notes and coins come in 5, 10, 20 and 50 cents and one and two dollar denominations.

What's The Weather Like There?:

• One of the driest continents is Australia and experiences mostly a temperate climate through out the year. The north is usually warmer most of time, whilst the south has cooler winters.
• Australia has their Summers from December to February, Autumn (Fall) from March to May, Winter from June to August and Spring from September to November. The seasons are not like the seasons in the Northern Hemisphere as they are on the other side of the Equator on the Southern Hemisphere.
• On average, a third of Australia which is desert gets less than 10 inches of rainfall a year where as the rest of the country gets less than 20 inches.
• Snow only tends to fall the Australian Alps but rarely in the rest of Australia.
• In the summer, temperature gets to roughly 28°Celsius (82°Fahrenheit) but can get above 30°C (86°F). It usually gets to 14°C in the winter.
• The hottest recorded temperature was 50.7°C (123.3°F) whilst the coldest recorded was -23°C (-9.4°F)

Who and What Lives There?:

• The majority of people who live in Australia all came from the UK and most of them speak English. However, before the British took over the land, Aboriginal people lived there, who were the first to have lived in Australia. Aborigines still live there but most of them were killed by the people who took over the land.
• People have lived in Australia for about 40,000 to 60,000 years.
• An estimated amount of different plant species are 27,700 species, including Cycad Palms, Waratah, Kangaroo Paws, Banksia and many more.
• There are many different animals in Australia, with more than 378 species of mammal, 828 species of bird, 4000 species of fish, 300 species of lizards, 140 species of snake, two species of crocodile and around 50 types of marine mammal.

 (Image from fodors.com)

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ANIMAL: BEARDED DRAGON (Pogona)

(My own photos of my pet Bearded Dragon, Mojo)




Basic Facts:

• On average, Bearded Dragons live 3-7 years in the wild, but in captivity with proper care, 10-15 years and often 20.
• They get the name, Bearded Dragon because the puffy bit on their chin looks a bit like a beard.
• Although they're known more commonly as Bearded Dragons, they are also known as Pogona, which includes 8 lizard species all looking fairly similar. There is Pogona Vitticeps (the common, central Bearded Dragon) Pogona Henrylawsoni (Rankins Dragon, a smaller Bearded Dragon), Pogona Barbata (Eastern Bearded Dragon), Pogona Nullarbor, Pogonna Mitchelli, Pogona Microlepidota, Pogona Minimar (Western Bearded Dragon) and Pogona Minor (Dwarf Bearded Dragon).
• The central Bearded Dragon (Pogona Vitticeps) can grow up to around 16-24 inches or more or less, each Dragon is different.

Diet:
• Bearded Dragons eat 80% bugs and 20% veg, where as when they start to grow up, they gradually change to 20% bugs and 80% veg.
• The food that they will hunt and find in the wild will be a range of different insects and plants that they can find.
• In captivity, popular staple insects that are fed are Crickets, Locusts, Phoenix Worms etc with Morio (Super) Worms, Wax Worms etc as treats. They can also get a bowl of vegetables and greens such as Spring (Collard) Greens, Mustard Greens or Watercress, with the occasional bit of fruit like Apple as an example. These are all a good source of Vitamins but some veg is high in vitamins, for example carrot, so shouldn't be fed everyday.
• There are charts which show all the best food to feed to your pet Bearded Dragon.
• You will want a calcium powder to put on your insects and some veg (unless the food is already very high in calcium) and sometimes a vitamin supplement.
• Many Bearded Dragons have the natural instinct to chase after their food but some are just plain lazy and don't hunt much in captivity.
• Bearded Dragons do not naturally know to drink water, so they absorb it in rain puddles or from the moisture from their food in the wild, they can get it from their food in captivity too, but most people give them baths once a week to keep them hydrated as they need to be hydrated.

Habitat:

• Bearded Dragons, coming from Australia, can be found anywhere in the country, such as in your garden, on the pavement, up trees, sitting on fences, but these aren't their natural areas.
• A Bearded Dragons favourite place to be which is their natural habitat is in a rocky terrain. They may be found in the outback or in any place with lots of soil and rock.
• Keeping Bearded Dragons in captivity can take away any natural things from a Bearded Dragon, but having Slate Tiles in their vivarium and a small area with a soil area (coco fibre and play sand mix - water to help mix it) and this will be good as it helps mimic their natural environment in a way.

Adaptations:

• They have spikes going round on their body, head and beard to help warn off predators, however, these spikes are actually soft.
• Feeling threatened or scared, a Bearded Dragon can puff out it's beard and turn it black whilst hissing to make them seem all big and scary. A male Bearded Dragon may also turn their beard black whilst bobbing their head if they are trying to be dominant or see a female. Open their mouth could also be yawning and puffing out their beard can be them just stretching it out too.
• When feeling a bit too hot, Bearded Dragons open their mouths to cool down.
• Bearded Dragons have sticky saliva and their light tip of their tongue is gooey to get their prey.
• Because of their small teeth, Bearded Dragons have strong gums and jaws to crush their prey.
• They can go darker to absorb the heat if feeling cold then go lighter if they want to absorb less heat.
• Long nails for digging to burrow for escaping heat.
• Scales and padded feet that protect them from the heat.
• Strong legs for climbing to get closer to the light and running.
• Their colour allows them to camouflage into their surroundings.

Very Basic Care for Domesticated Bearded Dragons:

• Bearded Dragons will need to be in wooden vivariums (glass ones let out lots of heat as well as letting in unnecessary heat) with glass sliding doors. The minimum size which will last them their whole life is 4 foot by 2 foot, however, many Dragons enjoy running so 5 foot by 2 foots can often be a great size. Some people do a 3 foot by 2 foot until they are a year old and upgrade them.
• Baby Bearded Dragons will need to eat lots of bugs for growing, with 2 - 3 feedings a day eating as much as they can in 10 minutes. Sub Adults (Ages 8 months to 2 years old) have one feeding a day then 2 + years  have 1 feeding every other day and as they get older it starts to get to 3 times a week. Bearded Dragons should have a bowl of vegetables on offer through out the day. Feeding should be done giving at least an hour between lights going on and off.
• They should have a 100 Watt heat lamp on the hot side of the vivarium (for a 4ftx2ft or 5ftx2ft - 80w for a 3ftx2ft). Their basking spot should be roughly 40 degrees C (105 - 115 degrees F) with the cool side at 28 degrees C.
• They need a UVB strip light going along the vivarium. This is their sunlight, without this they can get Metabolic Bone Disease. All lights should be on 12 hours a day.
• In the vivarium should be a basking log to get closer to the light (the closest they can get to the light on it at 40 degrees C), a big rock or a couple of stones for a natural look. They may also like a little place to shelter in. Substrate can be tiles, reptile carpet, fake grass, maybe with a small section of coco fibre and play sand mix. Some people use sand for the whole substrate, however, Bearded Dragons may swallow it when taking up food and can get constipated, which is often fatal.
• Bearded Dragons are very friendly, so once they are tamed, they love to be handled and love space to run around.

 (Image from protatodiet.atspace.co.uk)

Sahara Desert & Arabian (Dromedary) Camel

Hey, this week is the Sahara Desert, the Arabian Camel and the Cactus.

Place: SAHARA DESERT

 (Image from livescience.com)

What is it?:

•  The Sahara Desert, Arabic for 'The Great Desert', is the hottest place on Earth, being the third largest desert and almost the same size as the United States or China at 9,400,000 km² (3,629,360 sq mi).
• Most rivers and streams there are only seasonal, except for the River Nile which runs through the desert into the Mediterranean sea.
• The Sahara used to be a fertile grassland many, many years ago, but due to the Earth's Orbital Shift, it dried up and became an arid desert.

Where is it?:

• The Sahara Desert is located in North Africa, covering Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Sudan and Tunisia.
• Bordering the Sahara, is the Mediterranean Sea to the North, The Sudan and the Valley of Niger River to the South, the Red Sea to the East and the Atlantic Ocean on the West. 
• The desert is divided into several sections; western Sahara, the central Hoggar (Ahaggar) Mountains, the Tibesti Mountains, the Air Mountains, an area of desert mountains and high plateaus, Ténéré desert and the Libyan desert.

What's the weather like?:

• The Sahara Desert is known to be the hottest place on Earth at 58 degrees Celsius (136.4 degrees Fahrenheit) as its hottest recorded temperature.
• The desert is very dry and arid It rains less than an inch every year in one half of the Sahara Desert, but in the other half, it gets up to 4 inches per year. This rain can come down very heavily when it happens.
• Sand Storm and Dust Devils are caused because of the north-easterly winds in the Sahara reaching hurricane level. Sand Dunes can often reach up to 590 feet tall. The wind is what causes the deserts shape and landscape as it shifts the sand around.
• Some mountain ranges in the Sahara often get snow at the top of them. The first time it ever snowed there was when a snowstorm stopped traffic in Algeria in 1979. There has also been other rare snow storms since.

Who and what lives there?:

• Not many people at all live in the Sahara Desert because of it's hot and arid climate, but most of the people who live there are called Nomads, who move from place to place. Most of them are Berbers or Arabs. Most of the people living in the Sahara are Islamic. 
• There are several animals and species like antelopes, cheetahs, ostriches, foxes, camels, goats, wild dogs, gazelles, many venomous snakes and many, many more, which live in the desert and have adapted to live there. There are 70 species of mammals, 90 species of resident birds, 100 species of reptiles, and many species of arthropods.
• The types of plants in the Sahara Desert are ones that are adapted to a very hot climate that don't need a lot of water. You will often find  several Cacti, Acacia, Doum Palm, Date Palm, Thyme and more.

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Animal: ARABIAN (DROMEDARY) CAMEL Camelus Dromedarius

 (Image from bsnyderblog.blogspot.co.uk)

 

Basic Facts:

• The Arabian Camel, unlike some other camels, has only one hump on its back.
• They have been domesticated for around 3,500 years and used as pack animals.
• From their feet to their hump, they can grow over 7 ft, and up to 726 kg.
• Camels are one of the very few animals that walk with both legs on one side at the same time (both left ones, then both right ones...)

Diet:

• They are Herbivores, which means that they eat whatever plant that they can find, apart from the poisonous ones which the camel will recognise.
• They get their water from the plants as there is not much water in the desert.
• They eat as much as they can when they find the food, as they do not know when they will never get it because of the lack of plant growth.

Habitat:

• Arabian/Dromedary Camels live in the Sahara Desert and the rest of Northern Africa as well as South East Asia. They mainly live in desert, sandy areas.

Adaptations:

• The Dromedary Camel have two rows long eyelashes and bushy eyebrows to stop any sand and dust from getting into its eyes.
• They can also close their nostrils so that sand or dust can't get in them.
• The hump on their backs is stored with up to 36 kg of  fat, which can give them the energy to keep going through the heat for miles. The fat can also be broken down into water and energy when it's hard to find any food or water.
• They can conserve liquid for a long time as they don't sweat very often.
• They have wide feet for walking on rocks and hot sand.
• Very large intestine that absorbs every bit of water from their food.
• Long, strong legs for walking long distances in the heat.
• Camels "spit" because they may feel that they are under threat and are trying to protect themselves or their food. The spit, however, is not spit is not saliva. It's actually partially digested contents of one of the chambers of their fore-stomachs.
• Camels have big, strong lips so that they can eat thorny and dry desert vegetation.

 

 (Image from puzzle-games.eu)

 

 

Introduction: Welcome to The Natural Wildlife!

(This introduction will be used as part of the about pages).

Hey!
Welcome to The Natural Wildlife. My name is Leo, I'm 13 years old from England and I have a huge passion for the wildlife and nature in the world around us and a love for animals. I have 9 pets (split between my mum's and my dad's house). I have 2 dogs, 2 rabbits, a bearded dragon, a gerbil, and 3 goldfish. I love caring for all my pets and I feel very lucky to have them, but I have a desire find all the other extraordinary creatures out there and I'm very interested in their habitats and adaptations and all the other stuff about them.

I created this blog to share information about wildlife with you every week. I will be making posts every Saturday and each post with be made up of 3 or 4 different sections; a chosen animal, a place (country, continent, forest etc...), a plant and if any, some updates on anything to do with animals or the wildlife that has happened in the week, such as an animal becoming extinct. The animal, place and plant that I will choose for each week will be related by coming from the same place. (Eg. Camel, Sahara Desert and Cactus) I will give basic facts on their habitat, diet, adaptations etc. If the animals are also kept as pets, I will mention a slight part of their care.

However, I hope that this will also help people doing their own research on animals, plants or specific places whether they are doing it for homework, general work or just out of interest, the facts should hopefully be easy to find, as once the post with the 3 or 4 sections has been posted, they will go into their own pages, the animal will be added to the animal page and the places to the place page and the plant to the plant page. To make it even easier, there will certain parts of the page including what type of area they come from (desert, cold, forest etc...)

OleoBlog, is my YouTube channel, where I make videos on pet care, Doctor Who, vlogs and much more, feel free to subscribe! Here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheReptile838


Look forward to new posts every Saturday!
~Leo :)