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All About Polar Bears

5/7/2015

The Polar bear is a breed of the bear family. It is a massive carnivorous animal weighing anywhere from approximately 380 -450kg. The polar bear is 1.3 Meter tall for adult males with a full body length of approximately 2.5-3Meters. The Polar bear is a great swimmer and will spend a lot of time hunting fishes and seals.

Where do polar bears live?
Polar bears fancy the cold and snow. They have white thick furs and thick fatty skins that allow them to live in areas of extreme cold. You will find many polar bears living in Canada, Norway, Greenland, Russia and of course Alaska. These are prime areas for the polar bears as they are also homes to another animal which is the main prey for polar bears, the seal.

What do Polar Bears Eat?
Well aside from fish, polar bears love the taste of seals. The polar bear's main prey is the ringed seal. Polar bears usually hunt ringed seals by waiting for them to breathe at openings in the ice (leads) or at breathing holes. Polar bears will also stalk seals that are hauled out on top of the ice. The polar bears are real patient when it comes on to catching these seals as they can't out swim them so it is always a cat and mouse game when it comes on to polar bear and ring seals. The seals makes holes in the ice so that they can come out to breath. This is the time when the polar bear will try and strike to catch these seals.

The Seals surface about every five to fifteen minutes at one of these breathing holes. Seals also use air pockets trapped under the ice when available. The polar bear finds these breathing holes and just sits there and wait for the seal to come and get oxygen. The thing with this hunting method is that the bear may have to wait a pretty long time and chances are the seal may not come up at the breathing hole where the bear is waiting. The polar bear have gone hungry many nights using this method.

Even though Polar bear will enjoy a nice succulent seal, they will not starve themselves if none is available. They also dine on almost any other meat kind and vegetation available. The will consume small mammals, bird eggs, birds, whale remains, walrus, narwhal and some vegetation. Any sea mammal such as the Beluga or narwhal that has become trapped in small opening in a park ice (savatt) are very easy targets for Polar bears.

Baby Polar Bears
Polar bears will mate during the period of April, May to June. Almost all mating will occur on ice.
Female polar bears will give birth to two cubs about two month after they enter their maternity den.

Newborns are 12 to 14 inches long (30–35 cm) and weigh a little over one pound (0.5 kg).

The family remains in the den until March or early April. During her entire time in the den four to eight months—mother bear doesn't eat or drink. When she finally emerges with her cubs, she leads them to the sea ice so she can break her long fast by hunting seals.

For at least 20 months, cubs drink their mother's milk and depend on her for survival. Her success at hunting is critical for her own needs and for teaching cubs to find food for themselves. Cubs generally stay with their mother for two-and-a-half to three years.

Polar Bears Hibernation
Other than if the Polar bear is pregnant. The polar bear does not hibernate in dens like brown and black bears. Instead, adult male polar bears and non-pregnant females remain active throughout the year.

Pregnant female polar bears do a mini pre birth hibernation where they will dig a snow den, give birth, and emerge three months later. During this three months, the Polar bear eats nothing end will loose weight as she will simply live off her fat reserves.

When bears actually hibernate, their body goes through changes such as heart rate drop and lower body temperature. Mother Polar bears do not enter a state of deep hibernation because they need a higher body temperature in order to meet the demands of pregnancy, birth, and nursing.

Polar bears endangered
Because of ongoing and potential loss of their sea ice habitat resulting from climate change, polar bears were listed as a threatened species in the US under the Endangered Species Act in May 2008.
The survival and the protection of the polar bear habitat are urgent issues. Polar bears numbers are constantly monitored as well as their habitat.

Polar bear extinction

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Wasps Facts

5/6/2015

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Wasp are part of the insect family, the flying and stinging one that is. I am sure you wouldn't want to encounter stumble upon these bad boys when they are angry or by some means have disturb their nest. There are different species of wasp, but each species fall into two main categories:

Solitary Wasp
I am guessing by now you may know the exact characteristics of Mr Lonely. Solitary wasp have no friends and will live out the rest of their lives just flying around. They rarely construct nest as they are more of a roamer.

Social Wasp
When last have you tweeted to a wasp? These wasp will actually live in colonies and of course do make nest. These colonies can be small like a a few hundred wasps or they can be huge numbering in the thousands. In the colonies not all wasp are able to reproduce as many times this is the sole responsibility of the queen wasp. I would not envy her for that job because all the queen wasp does is sit around all day and produce eggs. She doesn't fly out everyday to sting a few here and there and catch a little air time. Most of the workers within these colonies are sterile female workers.

Lets look at The Characteristics of Wasp

The normal Wasp is equipped with two pair of wings; so the wasp has four wings in all for weight balance and of course flight control.
Wasp are Parasitoids, You just learned a new word to day my wasp reading friend. What this means is that the wasp may use it's pray for reproductive purposes. As gross as it may sound, a wasp would love to lay ts egg in a dead spider. Wasp preys eventually become its host for its brand new off springs.
Wasp possess and stinger or ovipositor. This is what they use to defend themselves and bring food or a nesting host. Did you know that only females wasp are capable of stinging? How comes you ask? Elementary my dear boy. Since the stinger is part of the ovipositor and only females wasp has this sex organs. Its a no sting for males

What do Wasp Eat
When the wasp are larvae, meaning when they are babies, they are mostly grown in some host such as a spiders guts and will eventually eat out their host and become fit and healthy wasp where their return of the living dead eating habits will be over and they will then begin to crave and seek nectar.

Queen Wasp
Long Live the Queen, Long Live The Queen...Wasp that is. We have always heard about the queen in the Ant, Bee and Wasp Colonies. Have you ever asked yourself why these insects need a queen? How did she come by this royalty? Why there is no King Bee or King Wasp? Well here is how the queen got her royalty.

A queen was is picked from birth. Once the wasp identify a special larvae laid by a queen, that larvae is treated differently in order to produce another queen to continue the reproductive cycle so that the wasp generation may live on. The larvae selected for queening is also fed differently. It is given special protein that will foster high reproduction once those larvae becomes adult wasp. The larvae that become queens have high levels of a group of proteins that enable them to survive the winter and reproduce next year, whereas the ones that become workers are much shorter-lived and have low levels of these proteins. Now we know how a queen is selected but what about the king. Well the wasp queen is quite a solo producer as the queen is able to determine which sex the wasp will come as and produces the cell to reproduce without the intervention of a male.

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Africanized Killer Bees

5/4/2015

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So what is with all the buzz about the Africanized Bee?

Well before we go into why this bee is classified as a "killer" (poor little fellow) we need to look at a few things about the Africanized Bee. The Africanized Killer Bee is actually a result of cross breeding between the European Honey Bee and the African Honey Bee.

It is believed that a Brazilian bee keeper who was trying to interbreed the both European and African honey bees had accidentally let some loose. crossed bred bees resulted in a much more aggressive type bees that eventually made its way across the Americas. The bees are feared because of how they attack. They are well known to for aggressive swarms which will relentlessly chase their victims for miles. If your are cornered by these bad boys you will be aggressively stung hundreds or thousands of time leaving you either in excruciating pain or if medical attention is not received soon enough; death.

Africanised Honey Bee facts

Even though the Africanised Honey Bee is quite aggressive and even dangerous at times, traits that make them less desirable for commercial beekeeping. They have bullied themselves into becoming the dominant type of honeybee due to genetic superiority than all other counterparts. The Africanised killer bees exhibit without a doubt better and more honey production and when it comes on to pollination they come out top notch also. These little buzzers have to time to just sit idling, pollen and honey is their business, and if you accidentally stumble upon a wild nest of bees. Just leave them alone as they could be Africanized.

So we know that the Africanised Honey Bee is a force to be reckoned with and not something you would want as a pet. But what are some of the major differences between these honey bees and its Western counterpart:

Deploys in greater numbers for defense and pursues perceived threats over much longer distances from the hive.

In other words, these killer bees don't run out of stamina that easily and are very persistent in a chase. Their objective when chasing you is to simply inflict pain so you know the next time you are in their proximity you better stay at a good distance.

Is more likely to migrate as part of a seasonal response to lowered food supply.

Well, these bees will not stick around when food supplies begin to run low. They will travel for hundreds of miles to find a suitable environment where they can continue with their chores of making honey while they have adequate food supply.

Tends to swarm more frequently and go farther than other types of honey bees.

These bees are just natural swarmers and will do so very quickly. When these Africanised bees come together and form swarms it is like a frenzy which they love. An excited and ready to attack swam that just spells bad for you.

Has greater defensiveness when in a resting swarm, compared to other honey bee types

These killer bees are not just gonna sit by and let you trample all over their hives. If they have to go down, they will defend their resting swarm aggressively.

Have a higher proportion of Guard Bees in hive

These little yet aggressive dudes take their protection of their colony quite serious. On any indication that their hive is about to be threatened or is being threatened, they will attack mercilessly.

Africanized Honey Bees general Behavior

The way how many people describe the Africanized Honey Bee you would actually believe that it is a Goliath bees from mars with deadly venom that sucks on humans as lollipops. These honey bees are nothing like the picture some would want us to believe in their battles against the bees. The Africanized bee sting has no more venom than any other variety of bees. The reason why the African honey bee is feared is simply because of its aggression and its attack in swarms. The africanized honey bee will deliver at least 50% more sting to a body in an attack than all other bee species. They are relentless in pursuit and will basically chase and sting you many times. They will chase you over a kilometer in distance if they have to. Now that to me is one determined bee.

Queen Bee: Is the only bee in the hive that is sexually developed. She is the largest, and can be recognized by here elongated abdomen. The worker bee select which eggs will become queens. Once a queen is born, she goes on a mating flight and drone bees fertilize her. This fertilization flight can last her entire lifespan. She lives longer than all the bees in the hive. Some say she can live years and years, but she is most productive the first two years or so.

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