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Endangered Animals

Nowadays a lot of animals are in danger, and people must protect them and their habitats.

Asian elephants are the second largest animals in the world. Only African bush elephants are bigger. Asian elephants have smaller ears and smoother skin than their African cousins. Asian elephants are endangered due to poaching and habitat loss.

Blue whales are the largest creature ever to have lived on the Earth. They’re even bigger than the biggest dinosaurs. Blue whales can weigh up to 200 tons, but incredibly their diet consists solely of tiny crusteaceans called krill.

Galápagos Penguins live on the Galápagos islands, and are the only penguin found north of the equator. They are the second-smallest penguin: only the little penguin is smaller.

Giant pandas are bears that live in the forests of China. They live on bamboo. There are only around 3,000 giant pandas living in the wild today.

The Amur leopard is a critically endangered subspecies of leopard. The Amur leopard is found in Russia and parts of China. At one moment there were only around twenty Amur leopards left in the wild.

There are three species of orangutan: the Sumatran orangutan,  Bornean orangutan, and the recently identified Tapanuli orangutan. All are extremely endangered, and their populations continue to decline. Orangutans spend much of their lives in the trees, where they forage for fruit and insects. The word ‘Orangutan’ means ‘man of the forest’ in Malay.

A pangolin’s body is covered with scales made of keratin — the same substance that your fingernails are made of. There are 8 species of pangolin; four live in Africa, and four in Asia. They are all under threat, and two are extremely endangered. Pangolins are hunted for food and for their scales.

Desman (Выхухоль) leads a semi-aquatic life. The most favorable for the desman's residence are enclosed water bodies. For most of the year the animals live in holes with one outlet each. The output opens under water.

Great White Egret (Большая Белая Цапля) is a large bird 94-104 cm tall and with a wingspan of 131-145 cm. It is common in warm temperate and tropical latitudes. It lives along various water bodies both on the sea coast and inside the continent: swampy lowlands, floodplains and river banks, and lakes.