Autobiography of an exinct animal

My name is  Thylacine.  Some people call me Tasmanian tiger because I have  striped back . Some people call me  Tasmanian wolf . May be I look like a wolf. Do I ?

I was a native of continental Australia. My relatives lived in Tasmania and New Guinea too . Tasmania and New Guinea are islands and are part of Australia.  
I was the largest known carnivorous marsupial of modern times. Do you know what a Marsupial is? Marsupials are kind of mammals whose babies are born incompletely developed and are typically carried and suckled in a pouch on the mother's belly.

Our species , that is the  modern thylacine , first appeared on the earth about 4 million years ago.

Location and Habitat

We originally used to roam all over the mainland of Australia, but was confined to the island of Tasmania for the last 3,000 years. We used to live in forest and scrubland close to our grazing preys like wallabies.

Appearance

Let me tell you how I look. 

I resembled a large, short-haired dog with a stiff tail similar to that of a Kangaroo. My body colour was yellow-brown with  dark stripes half way down my back  which got me the nickname, "Tiger”. I had dense and soft hair in my body. My ears were erect and rounded and  about 8 cm long . My belly was cream-coloured. We typically had a length of 1 to 1.3 m and our tail was about half a metre. Our height was about 60 cm and we weighed about 20 to 30 kg.

We were one among the two marsupials to have a pouch in both male and female. The other is the water opossum. The female had a backward facing pouch. The male thylacine had a pouch that act as a protective sheath, covering the male's external reproductive organs while he runs through thick bush.

You know one interesting thing ? I could open my jaw upto 120 degrees and I had 46 teeth !!!!!

Diet

 Do you know what I used to eat?

I was a carnivorous animal. I was a nocturnal hunter hunting other marsupials like wallabies, smaller animals like rodent and also sheep. I hunted at night by smell using my pace and stamina to run down smaller animals until they became tired. I used to use my wide opening jaws to rip out its preys neck .I liked to feed only  from the fresh kill.

 Breeding

 We, the Thylacines typically used to breed once a year, with the young being carried in their mother’s backward facing pouch. After approximately 6-8 months the young ones too big for the pouch were left alone in a sheltered place while their mothers went for food.

Why did we become extinct?

We were living happily. That is when the most unfortunate things happened to us,

A wild dog called “dingo” arrived in mainland of Australia. We had to compete with him for food. The dingo hunted for the same food, but was a lot more efficient and adaptable. Slowly we became extinct about 2000 years ago.

Although we were extinct in the mainland of Australia, we survived in Tasmania till 1930.  European settlers were there in Tsmania. The introduction of sheep in 1824 led to conflict between the settlers and thylacines. We were blamed for killing their sheep. Government offered rewards to people for killing us. There were other reasons too for our extinction.

We had to compete with wild dogs introduced by European settlers; we lost most of our habitats due to grazing and farming. There was some disease  too that killed some of us.

We became extremely rare by late 1920’s.

The last known Thylacine to be killed in the wild was killed in 1930 by Wilf Batty, a farmer from Tasmania.

The last captive thylacine, later referred to as "Benjamin" was captured in 1933 sent to the Hobart Zoo where it lived for three years. This thylacine died on 7 September 1936. It is believed to have died as the result of neglect—locked out of its sheltered sleeping quarters, it was exposed to a rare occurrence of extreme Tasmanian weather: extreme heat during the day and freezing temperatures at night. To commemorate our loss 7th September is declared as 'Threatened Species Day'  in Tasmania . This is to raise awareness of all the threatened species in the world, and to encourage action.

We held the status of endangered species until the 1980s.But nobody could confirm our existence. So  Tasmanian government declared as extinct in 1986.

Today our pictures have been used extensively as a symbol of Tasmania. I am featured on the officialTasmanian coat of arms and also on the official logos of Tourism Tasmania.Since 1998, my picture has been prominently displayed on Tasmanian vehicle number plates.

We remain now only in pictures. That is my story friends. So , dear friends, I would like to conclude with this small piece of advice.

Every creature has as much right to  life as you do. So, protect and care for them.

PLEASE DON'T SHOOT animals WITH GUNS, DO WITH CAMERAS IF YOU WANT.

Do electrons move around the nucleus in orbits ?

I found this link useful .

 It is good if we learn the right thing. Unlearning becomes difficult , if we learn the wrong way...

http://www.chemguide.co.uk/atoms/properties/orbitsorbitals.html

Do Whales and Dolphins sleep ?

When my son was in first standard , he  came to me asking this question , " Whales and dolphins are mammals. They breathe air through the nostrils located on top of their head ( called blowholes). Then can they sleep ? If they go underwater and sleep , how would they breathe ? Would n't they die if they forget to come to the surface of the water for breathing ?

I was little puzzled as I did not have the answer . I googled and explained the reason to him. Thanks to the technology advancement that parents have the right  answer at the click of the button ! Children have the ability to question  status quo which probably we adults lost over a period of time. The inspiration behind this blog is  my son. May be useful to all other parents and children too !

Answer is beautifully explained in "Howstuffworks".

­Whales and dolphins are mammals, so in a lot of ways, they are just like human beings.­ Among other things, they have similar bone structure, are warm-blooded and give birth to "live young." The biggest differences between these animals and human beings are related to our respective environments. Whales and dolphins have a unique respiratory system that lets them spend long periods of time (sometimes 30 minutes or longer) underwater, without taking in any oxygen. ­

­On land, human beings and other mammals breathe involuntarily: If we don't make a decision to breathe or not to breathe, our body will take in air automatically. Because of their undersea environment, whales and dolphins must be conscious breathers: They have to actively decide when to breathe. Consequently, in order to breathe, they have to be conscious. This presents a problem, since mammalian brains need to enter an unconscious state from time to time in order to function correctly (see How Sleep Works to find out why this might be).

­­There's plenty of time for a dolphin to catch a catnap between trips to the ocean surface, of course, but this isn't a viable option. When you're a conscious breather, it's just not feasible to be completely unconscious -- what if you don't wake up in time? The solution for whales and dolphins is to let one half of the brain sleep at a time. In this way, the animal is never completely unconscious, but it still gets the rest it needs.
Scientists have studied this phenomenon in dolphins, using electroencephalography. In this process, electrodes hooked up to the head measure electricity levels in the brain. The resulting electroencephalograms (EEGs) of dolphin brains demonstrate that in the sleep cycle, half of the dolphin's brain does indeed "shut down" while the other half is still active. Researchers have observed that dolphins are in this state for approximately eight hours a day.

We can't really know what this rest state feels like, but we can make a good guess. It is probably something like the semi-conscious state we experience as we begin to fall asleep. We're pretty close to unconsciousness, but are aware enough of our surroundings to wake up completely if we need to.

And where do dolphins and whales sleep? They could probably sleep anywhere, but it makes sense that they would do it near the surface of the ocean so they can come up for air easily. It's not uncommon to see dolphins "logging," swimming slowly along the surface, with very little movement. Presumably, these are dolphins at rest.

Interesting , is n't it ?

Does cutting down trees affect rains ?

My son asked me the other day, "Does cutting down trees affect rains?  

Yes. It does. Trees are necessary for rain. Trees creates cold and humid atmosphere required for rain. 

Water from ponds, lakes, rivers, seas get evaporated due to the heat of the sun and rise as water vapor.   As we go up in the atmosphere, it is cooler. So, at maximum height in the atmosphere, the water vapour in the air condenses and tiny water droplets are formed. These tiny water droplets floating in the air along with dust particles are called clouds. As the clouds move up further, it is even cooler. Water droplets come together to form larger water droplets. The larger water droplets are so heavy that air cannot hold them. There fore they fall down as rain. If the temperature is very low, the water droplets freeze in the atmosphere and fall as hail or snow. The coming down of water in the form of rain or hail or snow is called precipitation.

Important thing to note is that the water vapour is also added by the plants through a process called transpiration. Let is look at what is transpiration. 

1. Transpiration is the process by which plants return water to the atmosphere. After absorbing water from the ground, plants release water through their leaves. Transpiration helps plants stay cool, in the same way perspiration keeps humans and animals cool.

2. Plants and trees have pores on their leaves – stomata – which enable the exchange of gases such as carbon dioxide between the leaves and the surrounding air.  When stomata open, water droplets are released and usually evaporate from the leaf’s surface. This process is known as transpiration and provides an important source of moisture for cloud formation and rain. 

How much water do plants transpire?

An acre of corn gives off about 3,000-4,000 gallons (11,400-15,100 liters) of water each day, and a large oak tree can transpire 40,000 gallons (151,000 liters) per year.Large rainforests (and their humidity) contribute to the formation of rain clouds, and generate as much as 75 percent of their own rain.

This continuous movement of water from the earth's surface, water bodies and plants as water vapour to the atmosphere and back to earth's surface as rain hail or snow is called water cycle. This cycle maintain the supply of water on land.

So, trees play a very important role in maintaining the supply of water.  Let us conserve trees.