Animal Classes

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Platypus

Tuatara reptilesreptiles

How Long the egg takes to hatch

The Young

Mating and Eggs

Dangers

Cool facts

Tuatara reptile’s lifecycle

Mammals

Platypus’s lifecycleThe Platypus’s body

Dangers

Food

Amazing Facts

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Reptiles are cold blooded air breathing vertebrates. Reptiles have scales and lay eggs(depends).Reptiles include Snakes, lizards Tur-tles, Tortoises, Alliga-tors and crocodiles.

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http://youtu.be/62YEUY7vyyY

Watch this video about reptiles!

Referred to as a "living fossil", the tu-atara may look like a lizard but is really a Rhinocephalia, a beak-nosed reptile from the pre-dinosaur time over 225 million years ago, according to the St Louis Zoo. Native to New Zealand, the tuatara lives a amazing time that tops 100 years. Its slow breathing may be the reason why the tuatara lives so long; it breathes ev-ery seven seconds and can hold its breath for an hour. Next

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Tuatara Reptile’s Lifecycle

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How Long the egg takes to hatch

For the egg to hatch, it takes 13 to 16 months, depending on the weather. During extremely cold weather, the growth of them may be delayed. The eggs often fall victim to predators such as rats, so very few actually end up hatching.

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The Young

Once hatched, the babies must immediately search for food and dig a burrow for safety from predators. They enjoy feeding on in-sects and often steal bird eggs. Tuataras like to share burrows of a sea bird instead of digging their own. Next

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Mating and Eggs

The tuatara reaches maturity be-tween 13 and 20 years. The reptile continues to grow until it reaches 30 years old, according to San Diego Zoo. Every four years the tuatara will breed. Breeding begins in March. Eight months later, the female tuatara lays up to 19 soft-shell eggs in a nesting burrow of sand. After laying her eggs, the female leaves.

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Dangers

Rats and domestic dogs are the main predators of the tu-atara. In 1984 the rats drove an entire population of tu-ataras, which had decreased the population in island of the coast of New Zealand, into ex-tinction within six months. The rats killed adults, young and eggs. Currently the tuatara lives on only 30 tiny islands off New Zealand and is protected by the government.

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Cool Facts

If the soil is cool, the eggs produce females. Warm soil produces males.

The Tuatara reptiles has been surviv-ing for more than 200 million years. This is because Tuatara from New Zealand can slice up it’s food by us-ing a ‘Steak knife sawing motion’ when it chews!

Fun fact! Weird fact

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Mammals are warm blooded air breathing ver-tebrates. Mammals have hairy bod-ies, give birth to their youngs and feed them milk.Mammals include dolphins, whales, pandas and also humans.

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The platypus is found in eastern Aus-tralia. They live aside freshwater rivers or lakes, and create burrows for shelter and protection. They are active mainly at nighttime hours, and use their webbed feet for swimming. When swimming the platypus has it’s eyes shut. They swim underwater for 2 minutes, before return-ing to the surface for oxygen. They can however stay underwater for up to 10 minutes, and due to their natural buoy-ancy, they need to be underneath an-other object to do this.

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Platypus’s lifecycle

Hatch-ling

Youn

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Lays

eggs

Adult Platypus

Unlike other mammals Platypuses lay eggs.Fertilised platypus eggs stay in the mother's body for around 28 days. The egg is incubated by the mother curling around it and keeping it warm and dry in the chamber of the burrow for another 10 days before hatched.

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The Platypus’s body

The Platypus has a wooly furred coat and range from 30cm to 45cms in length and the tail about 10 to 15 cms. The wooly furred coat actually has three different layers. The first layer keeps the animal warm, by trap-ping air, the second layer which provides an insulating coat for the animal, and lastly the third layer of long flat hairs to detect objects close by. These creatures weight on average between 1 to 2.4 kilograms.

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Dangers

They have an average lifespan of 12 years.This lifespan may be shortly diminished, as the platypuses biggest threats are snakes, goannas, rats and foxes. Another big threat to the platypus is man, via wa-terway pollution or land clearing.

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Food

Platypuses feed on insect lar-vae, worms or other freshwa-ter insects. They do so mainly at night, by the use of their bill. They turn up mud on the bottom of the lake or river, and with the help of their elec-troreceptors located on the bill, find many freshwater in-sects. They store their findings in special pouches behind their bill, and return to the sur-face.

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Amazing Facts

Amazing Fact: Platypuses can consume their own body weight in food in a 24 hour period!Male platypus are larger than the female. They reproduct by mating which occurs once a year, between June - October. The female lays between 2 - 4 eggs and incu-bates these for a two week period. When a young platypus is born, they feed from milk from the mother. The mother secretes this milk from large glands under the skin, the young platypus feed from this milk which ends up on the mothers fur.If you thought this was a cute and cuddly Australian animal, well, you are only half correct. The male platypus have a hollow spur about 15 milimetres in length on the inside of both hind legs. This in turn is connected to a venom gland, and the platypus uses this spur to defend itself against predators. 

Amazing Fact: The male platypus has venom strong enough to can kill a small dog, or cause excruciating pain among humans.Since only the male platypus has this venomous spur, and the gland peaks during mating season, many suggest it is normally used in aggressive en-counters between other male platy-pus.There is no official name for a baby platypus, but a common suggested name is "platypup".

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Watch this video to know more about platypuses!

http://youtu.be/OVneqhu9oZk

Birds are a feathered and can usually fly.Birds lay eggs and are air breathing verte-brates.Birds have two legs.

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Snowy egret’s lifecycle

Adult

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gHatch-

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Young

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The eggs hatch af-ter about three weeks.

Snowy egret’s body

20~27 inch

41 inch

Snowy Egrets weigh up to 13 ounces. They are about 20~27inches tall and their wingspan is around 41 inches long. They live for over16 years. It winters in Caribbean, where it finds suitable habitat, salt lagoons, freshwater ponds, grassy pools, beaches, shallow rocky areas, rice fields and wet mead-ows. Throughout Central America, it prefers lowlands close to freshwaters, lakes and large mouths. In South Amer-ica, it lives in coastal mangroves, mud-flats and marshes rather than in higher areas. However, we can find it regularly up to 4000 metres of elevation in the Andes of Peru.

Habitat

Snowy Egrets are found in marshes, swamps, ponds, lakes, shallow coastal ar-eas and tidal flats and oc-casionally found in dry fields.

Food

Snowy Egret feeds on earth worms, aquatic and terrestrial insects, crabs, shrimps, crayfish, shellfish, fish, frogs, lizards and snakes. It usually consumes 75% of fish and 25% of crus-taceans.

MatingThe Snowy Egret’s mating starts around March, April and May. These birds are very handsome because of their pure white feather. Using their beautiful feathers, they attract the fe-males. They stick the feathers out that grows especially at this season so they could get the attention from females. Doing this, makes the male look strong and cool. Many of the female birds like the good looking males birds.

Building the nest

First the Egret couples find a place to make the nest. If they spot a safe place they start building their nest for their eggs.The nest is usually con-structed out of twigs. The male gets the ma-terial, and the female constructs.

The Young

When the young is born the parents are busy feeding them. The youngs try to attract at-tention from the parents to get more food than their siblings. They stretch out their neck cry out loud. The one which attracts the most attention gets fed.The parents take turns feeding them. They eat the food and come back to the nest and feed them. They feed their youngs by throw-ing up the food in their mouth likes penuins.After about 4 weeks after hatching they pre-pare to leave their home. They hop around the nest getting ready to fly. With some assis-tance from their parents, they get ready to depart. Then the baby will fly away.

Cool facts

http://youtu.be/62YEUY7vyyY

Snowy Egrets are also called white herons.