Primate

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Marsupial

Marsupial Mammals

North American Bullfrog

The characteristic call of the North American bullfrog is used to attract females for mating. Following mating, the females deposit as many as 10,000 eggs in quiet, protected waters. The eggs hatch into small, spotted tadpoles.

Jerry Young/Dorling Kindersley/BBC Natural History Sound Library. All rights reserved.

Amphibian Eggs in Water

A mass of amphibian eggs, appearing as small black spots, is contained within a gelatinous mass while they incubate in a freshwater pond. Eggs deposited in this fashion receive little or no parental protection and will soon hatch into small, wriggling tadpoles.

Dorling Kindersley

European Brown Bear

The European brown bear is found in isolated open plains from Norway to the Siberian peninsula and as far south as Greece. Cubs stay with the mother for two years or more and learn from her how to hunt and find food. A female becomes aggressive if she feels her cubs are under threat. However, bears do not deserve their reputation for ferocity, as they attack only when alarmed or frightened.

Ojuro Huber/Oxford Scientific Films

Elephant

Discovering Laos:  The land of a Million Elephants

Elephant Man, The (1980)

Introduction to the Proboscidea

The Elephant of the Africa

The Elephant of the Cameroon

Tusk, Tusk: Lifting the ban on ivory

Wuchereria bancrofti: The causative agent of Bancroftian Filariasis

Red Kangaroo and Joey 

Kangaroos are born hairless and immature, without ears, eyes, or hind legs. The young kangaroo, or joey, develops inside its mother’s pouch for five to nine months. After leaving the pouch, it continues to suckle by placing its head inside the pouch. From then on, the male joey will develop more quickly than the female.

Buddy Mays/Corbis

Pilot Whales

The gregarious nature of pilot whales supports a highly developed social structure, in which the whales gather into specific groups for travelling, feeding, and mating. The group responds to the cries of injured animals, often following them into danger. This tendency makes groups of pilot whales particularly susceptible to whaling and to mass stranding.

Douglas Faulkner/Photo Researchers, Inc./Library of Natural Sounds, Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. All rights reserved.

Penguin Keeping Its Young Warm

Penguins always return to their ancestral nesting sites to lay their eggs and rear their young. The emperor penguin, the largest of the penguins, lays its single egg during the coldest time of the year, when temperatures drop as low as -66° C (-80° F). The egg is incubated on top of the parent’s feet, protected by abdominal folds of skin. Young chicks remain under these abdominal folds for a short time until they are able to regulate their own body temperature.

Doug Allan/Oxford Scientific Films

Giraffe

Female giraffes, Giraffa camelopardalis, give birth in one of several specific "calving areas" in their home ranges, returning to these grounds to bear subsequent calves even if the larger home range has drifted geographically. Here, a young giraffe suckles from its mother. Strong and well-developed at birth, calves nonetheless frequently fall to predators in their first year of life. After weaning, females stay within their mothers’ territories, whereas males leave the range in all-male groups. Once a dominance hierarchy has been established among them, they wander alone in their own small ranges in search of females in heat. The sex of a grazing giraffe can be determined at a great distance with considerable accuracy. Almost invariably, males feed with their necks and often their tongues completely outstretched to reach the foliage of very tall trees. In contrast, females bend their heads over the tops of smaller trees.

Oxford Scientific Films