Description: Toucans are about twenty five inches tall, and have long colorful bills up to eight inches long! These bids also weigh up to twenty ounces. That's roughly the same amount of weight as two and a half packs of butter! When a baby toucan has hatched, their beak is not yet grown. Though after a couple of months it will become full size.
Habitat: Toucans live in Central America and the Caribbean. They live in the Rainforest canopy. The nests of toucans are usually found inside tree holes. Diet: Toucans eat lots of berries. In fact, the beak of a toucan is used to squash the berries and to tear apart the bigger berries. They also eat lizards and other small birds.
Travel/Groups: Toucans travel in flocks of about six. Their bright colors help them blend into the light from the canopy. But their loud vocals make them very un-hidden.
Protection Status: Toucans are near threatened.
Interesting facts: Both the male and female toucan care for the eggs.Toucans have somewhere between two to four eggs a year The Toucan is one of the worlds most popular birds. There are over forty types of toucans.
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Pink River Dolphin
Description: These dolphins are in between eight and ten feet tall/long and two hundred pounds, though males tend to be larger. Pink Dolphins are usually born between July and September if they are in the wild. When they are born these dolphins are about thirty inches long/tall and two and a half pounds.
Travel/Groups: Pink dolphins travel alone, which is a disadvantage. When they are born, their mother only stays with them for one year. She then leaves them to live by themselves.
Protection Status: Twenty years ago these dolphins were one of the least endangered. Now, they are in danger of extinction.
Interesting facts: These dolphins are actually born gray. The pink color is really just the blood showing through the skin, due to its thickness. The pink river dolphin is thought to be one of the most intelligent dolphins. They have a brain capacity forty percent larger than humans.
Jaguar
Description: Jaguars are about four to six feet in length. Their tails are about two feet long alone! They weigh about seventy to two hundred fifty pounds, males larger than females. When jaguars are born, they are only about two pounds! Jaguars look a lot like leopards, but there are many ways to tell them apart. For example, jaguars are heavier and have shorter tails.
Habitat: The main habitat of a jaguar is a forest. But they also live in the woodlands and grasslands (areas close to water) in Northern Mexico, Central America, and Northern South America.
Diet: Jaguars are carnivores. They eat fish, reptiles, monkeys, deer, horses, cattle, armadillos, and caimans. They are very skilled swimmers and climbers, which allows them to get animals that live in the water and high in the trees. Also, their strong jaws and good night vision play an important part in hunting. Travel/Groups: Jaguars live alone and hunt alone. Only for mating they are together. When a mother has babies, she protects them from all other jaguars, even the father. After a few years, the babies will go off on their own.
Protection Status: Jaguars are near threatened.
Interesting facts: Yaguara (the South American word for jaguar) means "animal that kills in a single bound". When a jaguar is born, they are blind.
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Three Toed Sloth
Description: Sloths are typically one and a half to two inches in length and eight to nine pounds. Sloth's have very good eyesight and sense of smell. But their hearing is not as good due to their small ears. Sloths also have stumpy tails and the ability to turn their neck two hundred seventy degrees.
Diet: Sloths are herbivores: they mainly eat leaves, fruit and shoots. They get almost all of their water from juicy plants. They use their tiny teeth to chew up leaves. Sloths eat at night, because they sleep most of the day.
Travel/Groups: When a sloth gives birth, the baby clings onto them for nine months or so. Sloths usually travel through trees, but every once in a while the sloths go onto the ground and into the water.
Protection Status: Three Toed Sloths are endangered.
Interesting Facts: Sloths are actually pretty good swimmers. But they are so bad on land that they have to drag their bellies on the ground. The sloth got its name due to its slowness. In fact, the sloth is the slowest mammal on earth and takes a month to move one kilometer!
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Poison Dart Frog
Description: Poison Dart Frogs are usually half an inch to two inches. They have very bright colors so their predators can easily recognize them. They are usually yellow, gold, copper, red, green, blue, or black. There are over one hundred species of these frogs, each one different designs and colors.
Diet: These frogs feast on small insects and spiders. They use their long sticky tongues to capture the bugs. The poison produced from a Poison Dart Frog actually comes from their diet.
Travel/Groups: A group of Poison Dart Frogs is called an Army. When the mother frog gives birth to the egg, she puts the eggs on the leaves. The father comes to check on the eggs every once in a while. The tadpoles swim onto the males back once hatched. After a while, the tadpoles are left on their own to grow fully into a frog.
Protection Status: Poison Dart Frogs are threatened.
Interesting Facts: The only predator of a Posion Dart Frog is a snake called Leimadophis epinephelus. The Leimadophis epinephelus has created a resistance to the frog's deadly poison. Just two and a half grams of poison from this frog can kill a one hundred fifty pound man.
