Arbutus — Arbutus is a genus of at least 14 species of flowering plants in the family Ericaceae, native to warm temperate regions of the Mediterranean, western Europe, and North America. North American members of the genus are called Madrones, from the Spanish name madroño. The European species are called Strawberry Trees from the superficial resemblance of the fruit to …

Aloe — Aloe is a genus containing about four hundred species of flowering succulent plants. The genus is native to Africa and is common in South Africa’s Cape Province and the mountains of tropical Africa, and neighbouring areas such as Madagascar, the Arabian peninsula and the islands off Africa. The APG II system (2003) placed the genus in the family …

Seal — The true seals are a diverse and widely distributed group of mostly marine, aquatic mammals. They are also called the earless seals because they lack external ears, having only a tiny, wrinkled ear opening on each side of the head. The true seals, family Phocidae, are classified with the eared seals (sea lions and fur seals), family Otariidae, …

Pangolin — Pangolins or scaly anteaters are mammals in the order Pholidota. There is only one extant family (Manidae) and one genus (Manis) of pangolins, comprising eight species. There are also a number of extinct taxa. Pangolins have large scales on their skin and are found in tropical regions of Africa and Asia. The name “pangolin” derives from the Malay …

Okapi — The okapi (Okapia johnstoni) is a mammal of the Ituri Rainforest in central Africa. Although it bears striped markings reminiscent of the zebra, it is most closely related to the giraffe. Native just to the Ituri forests situated in the north east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, it was known only to the local people until …

Opossum — Didelphimorphia is the order of common opossums of the Western Hemisphere. Opossums probably diverged from the basic South American marsupials in the late Cretaceous or early Paleocene. A sister group is Paucituberculata (shrew opossums). They are commonly also called “possums,” though that term is also applied to Australian fauna of the suborder Phalangeriformes. The Virginia Opossum is the …

Mandrill — The Mandrill (Mandrillus sphinx) is a primate of the Cercopithecidae (Old-world monkeys) family, closely related to the baboons and even more closely to the Drill. Both the Mandrill and the Drill were once classified as baboons in genus Papio, but recent research has determined that they should be separated into their own genus, Mandrillus. The Mandrill is the …

Lynx — A lynx is any of four medium-sized wild cats. All are members of the genus Lynx, but there is considerable confusion about the best way to classify felids at present, and some authorities classify them as part of the genus Felis. Lynx have short tails and usually a tuft of black hair on the tip of the ears. …

Lion — The lion (Panthera leo) is a member of the family Felidae and one of four “big cats” in the genus Panthera. With exceptional large males exceeding 250 kg (550 lb) in weight, it is the second-largest living cat after the tiger. Wild lions currently exist in sub-Saharan Africa and in Asia with a critically endangered remnant population in …

Lemur — Lemurs make up the infraorder Lemuriformes and are members of a group of primates known as prosimians. The term “lemur” is derived from the Latin word lemures, meaning “spirits of the night” or “ghosts”. This likely refers to their large, reflective eyes and the wailing cries of some species (the Indri in particular). The term is generically used …