Animals Of Asia

Here, in the tropical climate of Southeast Asia, the animals are somewhat similar to those found in Africa. For example, like Africa, Southeast Asia is the home of apes. These are gibbons. Asia's thick tropical forests make an ideal home for such expert climbers. See how they use their long arms swinging from branch to branch? This is the way most apes climb. Their cousins, the monkeys, usually climb on top of the branches using tails for balance. Hanging beneath the branches, gibbons and other apes do not need tails. Although they travel fast, they don't often fall. Langurs, or leaf-eating monkeys, are also very much at home in the trees. They eat leaves, fruit, buds, and shoots, and often live in large groups. Like the gibbons, these monkeys are found only in Southeast Asia. These spectacular leaps from one tree to another are a way of showing others who is the boss. Macaques are monkeys, too, but they spend most of their time on the ground. They are like Africa's baboons and roam in troops searching for food. >> In parts of India, they are thought of as sacred, and the people protect them and feed them. More than any other monkeys, macaques love to swim. Of course, when you live in such a warm climate, it's a good way of keeping cool. The loris is a distant relative of the monkeys and apes, but unlike them, it climbs very slowly and deliberately. Lorises are not often seen because they usually live at the tops of tall trees, and because they usually sleep during the day, becoming active at night. This one seems to have trouble sleeping. Those huge eyes catch every glimmer of light, and must find the daylight dazzling. They would work much better at night, when the loris usually goes about its business, searching for fruit, small birds, and insects. And here's another insect eater. This is a pangolin. Those overlapping scales are useful as armor, but are made of hair. The pangolin is an anteater, and rips open the nest of ants and termites with its front claws before mopping up the insects with its long, sticky tongue. Its only known relations are other pangolins, and they are found only in Southeast Asia and in Africa. The monitor lizard has African cousins, too. It's a member of a big family found in many parts of the world, which includes the largest living lizards. That flickering tongue is being to taste the air, a habit which helps out the sense of smell when the monitor is hunting. At the moment, it doesn't seem to be hungry. So, those open-billed storks are probably safe. But, this little mouse deer is more likely prey. It is one of the smallest of the hoofed animals. It is quite harmless and minds its own business, but quite by accident, it has walked into trouble. This is an Indian cobra. But, even poisonous snakes prefer a quiet life if possible. So, the cobra uses its ribs to fan out its neck as a warning. The mouse deer gets the message. And this time at least, all is well. These forests are also the home of wild jungle fowl. They belong to the pheasant family, and the males are very handsome and have as many wives as they can get. The females are more plain. Their mother has to look after the chicks without help from her mate. After all, he is the father of other families, too, and he has no much time to spare. Jungle fowl rarely fly, but the hornbill, although it is just as heavy, flies well. That bump on top of the bill is called the casque. It looks heavy, but is lightly built of bone with plenty of air spaces and covered with horn. The bill itself is useful for reaching out for the fruit that the hornbill eats. But, like chopsticks or a knife and fork for that matter, it has to be used with skill. It looks easy when you know how. In the tropics, fruits and flowers of one kind or another are to be found the whole year round and there are plenty of hungry mouths to feast on them. These are sometimes called flying foxes, but really they are giant [music] fruit-eating bats, the largest bats in the world with a wingspan of 5 ft or 1 and 1/2 m. By day they sleep hanging from the branches, but towards evening they wake up and fly in search of food. They may fly miles in search of the right kind of fruit. Asia's forests are the home of a remarkable number of flying animals, not just insects, birds, and bats. This is a flying lizard. It uses its throat as a signal. Using its long ribs, it spreads out the flaps on the sides of its body, which act as wings. Of course, each time it glides it loses some height, so it has to get it back by climbing up the tree trunk. But from one tree to another it takes the most direct route. If lizards fly, why shouldn't snakes? And this is in fact the world's only flying snake. Lightly built like other tree-living snakes, the paradise tree snake is an expert climber. And if it is frightened, it escapes from danger by straightening its body and launching itself into the air. It really is a controlled fall like a parachute jump, but the snake is in complete control of the situation. It spreads out its ribs and hollows out the underside of its body as it glides through the air. The forest trees make natural launching pads. The flying lemur has no close relatives outside Asia. As well as webbing between the front and back legs, it has some between the back legs and the tail. With such large wings, it can glide up to 136 m or 150 yd from one tree to another, losing only a dozen or so meters in height as it goes. It feeds on leaves, buds, and flowers. And when the supply on one tree is gone, it simply moves on to another. It's quicker by air. Returning to the ground, we find the spotted deer of tropical Asia. This is an animal that lives in the forest. Its spotted coat gives it excellent camouflage where the sunlight filters through the leaves. In spotted deer, as in most other deer, the branching antlers are worn only by the males. And they may need them, for this is Asia, home of the tiger. With its long, curved, dagger-like teeth and razor-sharp claws, a tiger can tackle almost any prey. But first, it must find it. This is where those large eyes and that keen nose come in handy. Tigers live in various kinds of country, ranging from jungles to reedy swamps or more open country with tall grass. In any of these places, the tiger's stripes blend with the shadows, making it easier for their owner to stalk its prey unseen. Sarus cranes are Asia's tallest birds, nearly as tall as a man. They fly well when they need to, but are more often seen in this dancing display. Why they do it and what it means to them is not known. It certainly isn't courtship because they do it at all seasons of the year and because young birds sometimes join adults IN THEIR DANCE. LIKE OTHER REGIONS OF THE WORLD, Asia has its heavyweights. This kind of wild cattle, the gaur, grows to be 2 m, well over 6 ft. Gaur live in small herds in hilly forests, using the cover of the trees, their size, and their horns as defenses against tigers. The great Indian rhinoceros is just as tall and much larger and more heavily built. Like the even rarer Javan rhino, it has a deeply folded skin and only one horn. The birds on this one's back feed on insects disturbed by the rhino's feet and having better eyesight, sometimes the birds help the rhino by warning it of approaching danger. Not that it has anything to fear from another Indian rhino. They usually live quite close to each other. >> [music] >> Like the rhinos, elephants eat only plants. Indian elephants are a little smaller than African elephants and are sometimes described as being the ones with small ears. It all depends what you mean by small. Female Indian elephants have only small tusks known as tushes. Usually they scarcely show beneath the trunk. A young elephant must stay close to its mother so that she can protect it from tigers. Its skin is thick, but it would be no protection against a tiger's claws. And although the skin looks wrinkled, it needs to be cared for. When they can, elephants swim every day. The trunk can be used to spray water and makes a useful breathing tool in deep water. And it is as useful as a hand. Along the coasts of some tropical islands, there are swamp-like forests of mangroves that are flooded each day. It is neither land nor sea. Or perhaps it is both. So, it isn't too surprising to find the mudskipper, a fish that walks out of water using its fins as legs. Of course, it has to keep itself damp. Watch it moisten its eyes by wiping them on its damp cheeks. It looks as if the animal is blinking, but fish can't blink. In the branches above the swampy forests of the island of Borneo, lives perhaps the world's strangest-looking monkey, the proboscis monkey. The original human inhabitants of Borneo thought it looked strange, too. They called it by the name they also used for the first European colonist, orang blanda, which means white man. They thought that the Dutch settlers had large noses, too. The proboscis, or nose, of adult males is particularly large. They're especially active in the early morning when they feed on leaves. But the rarest and most human in appearance of the wild animals of Borneo and the neighboring island of Sumatra are the orangutans. They are long-armed and tailless, and like the gibbons, they are true apes. They live on their own or in twos and threes. One young one at a time is normal, and it grows only slowly, reaching full size when it's about 10 years old. They mainly feed on fruit, especially the fruit of the durian tree. Orangutans are now rare. Probably fewer than 3,000 still survive. Like all of the Earth's wild creatures, Asia's animals are beautifully built for the lives they lead. Some are quick and clever. Some are unusual. Some are grotesque. But, in their different ways, They're all beautiful.