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Polar Bear (Ursus Maritimus)
Welcome to the big chill! Now you will need more than just a woolly hat and a pair of mittens to come visiting the Arctic, home of the famous North Pole, gargantuan ice-burgs and of course me - the Polar Bear!
Although you need warm togs to come here, I don't. I'm superbly adapted to living in seriously cold places. I have a double fur coat, and for extra insulation I have up to 11cm of fat under my skin. So long as I can keep up the fat content in my diet I won't lose any heat from my body. In fact I'm so good at keeping warm that if you were to try and photograph me at night with an infra-red camera (heat given out makes the picture), you wouldn't get a picture, all there would be is a spot made by my nose!!
Now a few facts, great facts - I'm a brilliant swimmer, 60 miles non-stop is OK for me. In fact I love water so much I will spend as much time in the water as on the ice, perhaps that's why I have the Latin name Ursus Maritimus, meaning Sea Bear. I also have partially webbed paws which help me along. As well as that my paws are an impressive 30cms across. With paws that big you would expect me to be pretty big too, well I am - actually I'm the largest land carnivore in the world (means I eat meat and rather like it!). But despite my impressive statistics, I'm in serious trouble. Climate change and pollution is wreaking havoc with my food supplies and frosty home, (it's not so frosty as it used to be).
What can you do to help? Well going organic is a great start to slowing down the pollution problem - you can't do better than an Animal Tails T-shirt with my picture on it! Another great idea is to get your parents to turn down the heating and start wearing a thermal vest - discover the joys of wearing your own insulation just like me!!
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Cheetah (Acinonyx Jubatus)
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Mako Shark (Isurus Oxyrinchus)
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Przewalski's Horse (Equus Przewalskii)
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Snow Leopard (Uncia Uncia)
If you like high places, you may like my home. Some of the highest places in the world are my home, and I often have a beautiful view of Mount Everest, (have you spotted it on my map?)
Snow Leopards love to roam in the high, wide open and very cold (especially when it's snowy) mountains of Central Asia. But you will have to look hard to spot me as my coat is perfect for camouflaging me in the snowy rocky terrain. My stunning extra long tail provides extra balance as I leap gracefully from one mountainous point to another - it also works beautifully as a very stylish scarf to keep my nose warm on really cold nights!
I don't wish to boast, but is has been said by more than a few people that I am one of the most beautiful big cats in the world, but although I am very lovely, I'm rather shy - you won't catch me on a cat walk!
Actually my beauty has been the reason we are so endangered, people keep hunting us for our beautiful furry coats, and despite a worldwide ban on hunting, we now find traditional medicine makers after us for our bones, and on top of all that our habitat is now under threat from domestic herds - things are really getting very tricky for us, but we are too shy make too much of a scene about it.
What can you do for us? Well wear this fantastic organic T-shirt with my picture on it, its bright colour will get you noticed - no camouflage there! Go out and strut your stuff in it on the worldwide cat walk for me, and tell them all I really, really need even more protection.
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Riverine Rabbit (Bunolagus Monticularis)
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Large Blue Butterfly (Phengaris Arion)
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African Wild Dog (Lycaon Pictus)
Or Painted Dog, or Painted Hunting Dog, or Cape Dog, or Cyhyene, or Loup-Peint, or Lycaon, or even Licaon, depending on whom you are speaking to!
Your domestic dogs are distantly related to me. We are only found in Africa, especially in scrub savannah and other lightly wooded areas. Our coats are rather special; they're bespoke design, with no two individuals having the same markings.
We hunt in packs and give a mean chase, catching an amazing 85% of our targeted prey - poor deers! We do look rather vicious, so you'd have thought we'd howl like wolfs, but in fact we chirp like birds when communicating. After a successful hunt we go home and regurgitate meat for those who stayed behind on crèche duty.
We are in serious trouble though. The IUCN Red List marks us as Endangered. The current estimate of our numbers remaining in the wild is approximately 3,000. We have virtually disappeared from West Africa, and of those that remain we are found mostly in South and South-Eastern Africa, with the largest population found in the Selous Game Reserve in Tanzania.
Our numbers are continuing to decline because of our ongoing conflict with human activities, infectious disease, and the fragmentation of our habitat. However, the good news is that we are now a legally protected species, and when you buy an Animal Tails T-shirt part of the profits go to the AfriCat Foundation who campaign for our preservation.
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Luna Moth (Actias Luna)
It has been said that we're the most beautiful moth on the American continent. I'm known for the stunning long tails on my hind wings, and although you may see many pictures of me (as for all super models), I am a real surprise when found in my natural habitat.
The male of my species has much to cram into life because he only has about one week to live. In which time he has to eat a lot and mate. Then 100-300 eggs are laid by the female. They hatch and hey presto caterpillars! They mooch about eating and eating and eating until they are quite fat little caterpillars, then they make a cocoon and after a few weeks inside the cocoon, out breaks another super model of the moth world.
Like so many super models I like to have a cause to speak for, and mine is to highlight the plight of many species of moths and butterflies. As a consequence of global threats, such as pollution, the use of herbicides and pesticides and the destruction of our habitats, the survival of many of my kind is now in doubt.
What can you do to help? Going organic is a great start, like buying a wonderful Animal Tails organic T-shirt. The cotton was grown without the use of herbicides and pesticides which kill off so many of my kind. You can also grow a few wild flowers in your garden and allow parts of it to become a little wilderness; we just love those sorts of places.
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Siamese Crocodile (Crocodylus Siamensis)
Now there I was peacefully lumbering across my local river bank in Thailand, when I bumped into a bunch of crazed scientists with cameras flashing and behaving like I was some Hollywood star on the red carpet at the Oscars.
Although I was happy to pose for a short while I did wonder what all the fuss was about. Well, it turns out these people were from the Wildlife Conservation Society looking for tigers (not many of them about these days, I can tell you) when I stepped into the frame.
As it turns out, apparently, there aren't too many of my kind about either these days. In fact they thought I was completely extinct in Thailand (I had noticed girl-friends were a bit thin on the ground). Apparently I have a few relatives that live in the wild across the border in Cambodia, but apart from that the rest of my relatives spend their lives being farmed for handbags. Imagine that, living your life in captivity and finishing up as a handbag.
The IUCN Red List marks us as being critically endangered - things are bad!
What can you do? Well it's the loss of our habitat that's the real problem. We live in tropical areas, and they seem to be cutting down the forests faster than it seems sensible, so encourage your parents not to buy anything made from a tropical hardwood.
If you're feeling in a campaigning mood, wear my T-shirt and tell everyone we must be saved. Tell them that although I look fierce, I am not really I won't attack you unless you attack me and I only eat fish. The biodiversity of the region I live in depends on me and my kind being there.
Yes I like it - lets all say it together 'Save the Siamese Crocodile!' Bring on the photographers and I will smile like a Hollywood star.
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Ring-Tailed Lemur (Lemur Catta)
Lemur means "ghost" in Madagascar, probably because we look rather spooky. But we're really sociable and fun to be with. We like to hang out in groups of about 30 swinging from trees, partying, looking for food and doing a bit of sunbathing.
You may have noticed our tails are rather special. They look so special because they have a lot of uses; we raise them high in the air like flags to tell each other "follow me!" When the boys show off for us girls, they rub their tails with stinky perfume which they secrete from glands in their wrists, it's their equivalent of aftershave - we think is rather nice! Once they're soaked with it, they raise their tails over their heads and point them around to show who makes the most scents. It's rather funny really, but in the end, the stinkiest one wins my hand.
The only place in the world that you'll find wild lemurs is in the primary forests of Madagascar. We're okay with living in Zoos, and do rather well there so you will probably have met some of my cousins hanging out and partying in a Zoo near you. But the deforestation of the primary forest of Madagascar is seriously threatening our survival in the wild.
Our forests are not just important to us, but also to the whole world. One of the major causes of climate change is the loss of forests like ours. Slowing down climate change is something we all can take part in and going organic is a great start. Buying a beautiful organic T-shirt featuring me is saving the planet in style!
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Stag Beetle (Lucanus Cervus)
How about this! I'm Britain's largest beetle - yes that's me the Stag Beetle. But can you believe it despite being the biggest (and we think the most impressive beetle), we're in crisis as our numbers are falling across the whole of Europe. Our biggest population is found in Britain, and the hot spot is London, we like to party.
You'll find me, if you have sharp eyes and some good luck, flying around on a summer afternoon looking for a mate. Actually flying is not my forte and I am rather clumsy. I find spotting windows challenging and tend to bash into them. When in London I'm forever bumping into bus shelters!
I know I look rather scary, but it's all show. Those huge antlers are used for impressing the ladies. When I find a lady beetle and there's another male stag beetle around, we have a huge, and might I say rather exciting, wrestling match with our antlers. The lady stag beetle doesn't have antlers like us, and little does she know that we don't really hurt each other. Finally one of us rolls over with legs in the air saying \"okay, I give up, you win\".
How can you help? Well our ladies like to lay their eggs under a nice piece of rotting wood (nice and warm and snugly for the larvae when they hatch), so if you could keep a few bits in a quiet corner of your garden that would be great. It also gives us a good place to hibernate in the winter.
Also, another small request, slightly embarrassing, but if we happen to land our backs on a pavement, we find it rather difficult get the right way up again! If you spot us in this situation, would you help by turning us over and putting us in a nearby bush or tree - though do be careful if it is a lady stag beetle, much as we love them, they tend to be a bit nippy and could give you a bite, so perhaps you should ask your parents to help, just in case.
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Spiny Seahorse (Hippocampus Guttulatus)
Hello my darlings! Let me tell you something about love and relationships. People ask 'what is love?' Well seahorses have the answer; we are ultra romantic. Every morning we start the day with a dance. We change into different colours to keep the romance alive. The dance lasts ten minutes, then we separate for the rest of the day so as not to risk getting on each others nerves. Now we know the formula works because we remain partners for life.
But here is something - you know what is really great about being a female seahorse, (apart from having a colourful dance each morning). Are you sitting down? This is news! The girls don't have the babies! Ha, ha yes - the males have them, not one or two, but about 1,000 a year. Go and tell your friends that fact! However even though that sounds like masses of babies, and that there should be absolutely masses of us around, it's not the case at all we are endangered.
We're under threat from so many things from climate change, marine pollution and the fact that we like to hang out in the same place, so when fishermen find us we are an easy catch. We are too pretty for our own good as we look fabulous in aquariums. We're also caught in large numbers for use in herbal medicines.
What can you do? Don't buy dried seahorses or starfish, shells or other marine creatures offered for sale when you visit the seaside. Also don't buy any of my unfortunate relations who have been caught from the wild as pets - they won't survive without specialist care.
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Asian Elephant (Elephas Maximus)
Well hello! I'm the Asian Elephant. The difference between me and the African Elephant is I have smaller ears, a rounder back, 19 ribs instead of 21, but most of all I'm so much more friendly. In fact I'm a charmer and an entertainer. If you ever see an elephant at the circus, it will without doubt be an Asian elephant as we are easily domesticated (we like to be looked after and let someone else worry about where the food is coming from) and we form loving bonds with humans.
The matriarch elephant (that is the most senior female and generally the oldest) in a herd is responsible for remembering who our friends are. She also has a great memory for routes (no need for Sat Nav when she is around!). She's the one who leads the herd along our traditional migration routes, hence the expression 'an elephant never forgets'.
However, this terrific and uncompromising memory has been part of the contributing factors to our decline and we're now seriously endangered. You see humans tend not to think that it might not be a good idea to build a house or grow crops on our migratory routes. If someone has done this we won't walk round a house, or a field of crops, we'll trample right through knocking houses down and trampling crops. We are also known to sneak into farmers fields at night and have a bit of an eating session. Of course the humans get rather cross and the result is they kill us. Another factor in our decline is we've been heavily hunted for our spectacular tusks, so our numbers are really low now. The last count estimated that there are only about 32,000 of us left in the wild.
What can you do? Please don't buy anything made from ivory (that's what sellers call our tusks), it may look beautiful, but to get it they have to kill a fully grown male Asian elephant, and we take rather a long time to grow up. You can also help stop the forests we live in being cleared by only purchasing Forest Stewardship Council-certified products.
Wear your Animal Tails T-shirt of me with pride, and tell everyone I must be saved. Its time to save the Asian Elephant - and don't forget that!
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Leatherback Turtle (Dermochelys Coriacea)
If you like facts, here's a great one for you. I'm the largest reptile in the world. I grow to about 2 metres long and weight almost 2000lbs, but have the speed and elegance of a dolphin when in the water. I have huge flippers which propel me on my cruises around the world. We're spectacular navigators and divers. We can dive to 1,000 metres on a single breath. Your scientists reckon that we have been swimming the world's oceans for at least 110 million years, and there are very few places we can't go; though in the end our favourite places are the warm seas of the world and in particular the Caribbean, that's where we like to nest.
Despite having been around for so many thousands of years, it looks like we might not last the next ten years, we are critically endangered. One of the problems is we always return to the same beach to bury our eggs in the sand. Each time we go back there seems to be more humans around, and they seem to know when we are coming. The amount of times our eggs have been stolen or have got squashed by some kid playing volleyball or carelessly parking a deckchair on top of them! But my family have nested on these beaches for centuries, so we don't see why we should move.
Another cause of our rapid demise is our particular taste in food. We just love jellyfish, we think they are absolutely delicious and will go for anything that looks like a jellyfish, and therein lies the problem. We often mistake plastic bags floating in the sea for jellyfish, and when one of us eats a plastic bag it gets twisted inside us and we die.
How can you help? Stop using plastic bags as soon as possible, and never, never, never, leave a plastic bag of any kind on a beach. If it floats into the sea and I eat it, it will be the death of me.
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Grevy's Zebra (Equus Grevi)
Hello Darlings! I'm the high fashion queen of the African plains. I am also the tallest of all the wild equines worldwide - as you'd expect from one with such great model credentials. Our species was named after a French President when one of my relatives was given to him as a gift in the 1880s by the Abyssinians; my relative was the first specimen known to the scientific world. I live in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia, where I graze all day on delicious grass.
Now don't go mistaking me for a Plains Zebra, apart from being shorter than me, the difference is all in the stripes and ears. My stripes are slimmer and closer together, and my ears are spectacular, just like a crown on my head. My fine stripes act as a very good camouflage, as they help to break up my outline when viewed through grass by predators. But despite my glamorous camouflage I am seriously endangered.
The problem is that it actually hasn't been good to be at the height of fashion, as I was hunted to almost extinction in the 1970s for the fur trade. Having such thin stripes compared to other zebras, hunters got more stripes per inch from me. My poor relatives were turned into handbags, slippers, purses and rugs. Although hunting is now banned, we're still endangered, because of competition from domestic herds for our grazing areas and water.
What can you do to help? If you're feeling in a campaigning mood do check out Earthwatch Institute's website. Wonderful people with great ideas, they're always doing fabulous things to protect the environment and endangered species. Just recently a group of them came to study me, (darling bunch they were always cooing and photographing me when I stepped out from behind a bush) to try and find better ways to protect me - what more could you ask for - apart from buying this fantastic T-shirt with my picture on! You'll look fabulous darling, I promise!
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Golden Eagle (Aquila Chrysaetos)
Have you got good eye sight? Even if you're the best in the human race, I will still spot you before you spot me - mine is spectacular, hence the term 'eagle eye' for someone good at spotting things.
I'm called a Golden Eagle because I have a striking golden crown and nape. I'm sacred in some cultures and my feathers are central to many religious and spiritual customs, especially amongst Native Americans. Mexico even made me their national bird.
There're only 420 pairs of us in Great Britain. We prefer wide open mountainous spaces so all of us live in the Scottish Highlands. A pair of Golden Eagles remains together for life. Our nests are called eyries and we build a few in out territory, which can be up to 160 sq miles. I need this space for hunting, and with my excellent eye sight I can spot prey from a long distance, and sometimes working with my mate, I'll swoop down and kill my dinner with my talons. I can kill a fox outright.
Despite not being that threatened world wide, my population in the UK is getting smaller, and we're now afforded the highest degree of legal protection under the UK's Wildlife and Countryside Act. So you may wonder why my numbers aren't greater despite being fantastic hunters and having such great protection?
Well my mate is a sensitive bird - if her nest is even slightly disturbed by a human she is off and will not return, and that's it, no chicks that year, because she will only lay one clutch of eggs. Also, I have to admit that I do sometimes eat livestock, so people poison and shoot me (despite it being against the law) - but I'm only being a hungry Golden Eagle.
How can you help? Well if you're in my territory during our nesting season, just find out from your local Royal Society for the Protection of Birds officer the places to avoid, and steer clear. Please don't upset my sensitive mate - otherwise I will have to wait another 12 months for chicks.
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Blue Whale (Balaenoptera Musculus)
Now when it comes to facts and figures I have to say that I come top on a lot of lists. So let's start with the best - I'm the largest animal in the world ever to have existed! I hear you cry, but what about the dinosaurs? Nope - I'm bigger than any of them - in fact many of them were tiddlers compared to me!
Carrying on: I weigh up to 200 tons (no one heavier that that either); have a heart the size of a Volkswagen Beetle, and a human child could crawl through my main artery. I hope you're impressed now!
On the fun side I'd be great to hire for large parties as I could inflate about 2000 balloons in one breath - that would be handy. However on the downside, my appetite is hard to satisfy as I eat 3,600kg of krill a day.
Despite my spectacular statistics, I'm sad to say that there're only about 15,000 of us left because of hunting, and climate change affecting our food supplies. Thank goodness for the enlightened 1960s, that's when hunting was banned, we were on the verge of extinction.
But despite the hunting ban, our numbers remain very low and dating can be tough with so few of us left. Fortunately our songs can be heard for hundreds of miles, as we have a low frequency whistle of up to an incredible 188 decibels. And here's another brilliant fact - we're the loudest animal on earth! Just so you know how loud we're talking; a jet engine reaches 140 decibels, and I'm noisier than that. I travel the world singing in search of a mate, not even your wonderful Pavaroti could sing as loudly as I can.
How can you help? Well for us the real problem now is climate change, so going organic is a fantastic start to helping us. So go ahead, buy the best T-shirt in the world, and sing my praises loudly!
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Cerulean Warbler (Dendroica Cerulean)
Hi Chick! What fun to be able to tell you all about me. Now I'm quite a traveller for a small bird. During the winter months I live in North America in old deciduous forests, and then migrate to the Andes in South America for my summer holidays.
Despite being small, I'm a real dare devil. I nest much higher in the canopy of trees than most other varieties of warbler, and then for fun I bungee jump out of my nest, only opening my wings when I'm well below the nest - it's great fun.
But despite my taste for dangerous sports, I'm sensitive to the environment and am into recycling - if I need to remake my nest, I always take the bits of spider web from the first nest to make the new one.
Male cerulean warblers are wonderful song birds, and love to spend the day singing in the tree tops. They are sensitive chaps and try and help to find nesting space by following us girls around singing softly in a whisper, it's not all that helpful really, but it's charming. The boys also guard the nest when we go off for a spot of hunting - but we have to admit the thing they're really good at is being decorative - we just love their brilliant blue feathers, makes a girl's heart go all of a flutter!
But here is the problem, we're endangered. My population plummeted in the 1990s, and continues to fall due to felling of forests in North America to make space for new human habitations and in the Andes for coffee plantations. I really need the forest to live and feed off all the insects - it would be okay if I liked coffee ...but bugs are my thing!
What can you do to help? Deforestation is one of the major contributors to climate change, so going organic is a great start, as organic cotton is grown in smaller fields and uses methods that support diverse flora and fauna. Also, where you can, encourage your parents to purchase 'shade coffee' which leaves habitat for me and other birds.
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A percentage of our net profits go to organisations that seek to protect endangered species. |
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