Picture Of The Week - Motherly Protection

This incredible image shows a lioness attacking a crocodile as she tries to cross a stream in Africa. But what's even more incredible is why the lioness is attacking: It wasn't just to save herself, it was to protect her lion cubs from the deadly predator.

This photo is just one in a sequence that show the incredible events unfolding. The photographer told the Daily Mail: 'I watched a lioness carefully move out into the channel and then there was a huge splash in the water,' she said.

 

'The sequence of six pictures of the real action were taken in one second.

'Luckily for the lioness the crocodile did not have an opportunity to do the death roll because her mouth was kept closed between the front legs of the lioness,' the photographer added.

'It was only after checking my pictures on the camera viewer that I really realised what I had witnessed. Luckily the story had a happy ending because all the lionesses and cubs made it safely to the other bank.'

 

To read more, and see the entire incident unfold, visit the Daily Mail website.

The Flight Of The Rhinos

We weren't quite sure what was happening in this picture of a blindfolded rhino being hoisted in the air, but we assumed it wasn't good. Turns out, we were wrong. The rhino is the picture is being airlifted to a safe, undisclosed location to keep it out of the path of poachers.

According to the story: "For some endangered rhinos, a 1,000-mile journey to rescue from them poachers starts with a helicopter ride — hanging upside down, blindfolded and sedated. That might sound uncomfortable, but experts say it's easier on the massive mammals than by other means. This new procedure is gentler on the darted rhino because it shortens the time it has to be kept asleep with drugs."

It's an unusual method of transportation, for sure, but we're happy conservationists have found a way to keep these endangered rhinos safe!

Klipspringers - The African Rock Jumpers

What is this animal with pointy horns that look like they could easily poke your eye out, balancing so precariously on the side of that mountain? It's a klipspringer, a small species of African antelope.

The word "klipspringer" means rock jumper in African. The klipspringer walks on its hooves, which are narrow and hard-edged - this enables their hooves to dig into the ground, which makes it so easy for these agile creatures to climb rocks. The narrowness of their hooves also lets klipspringers be able to stand on cliffs the size of a Canadian dollar coin (about the size of the Susan B. Anthony dollar coin here in the States).

Klipspringers mate for life and travel in their pairs. They are herbivores, eating the succulent plants that grow in the rocky terrain of the mountains. They never need to drink water because of the plants' high water content.

The Long-Crested Eagle

Visually the complete opposite of the bald eagle, the long-crested eagle has perhaps the most striking hairdo of any bird of prey.

 

 

Photo: D. Gordon E. Robertson

Long-crested eagles inhabit all types of woodland areas throughout parts of Senegal, Ethiopia, South Africa, and Namibia. At less than two feet long they are quite small for eagles, and thus feed primarily on small rodents and lizards. Long-crested eagles aren’t currently considered threatened, but any loss of woodland habitat can have a negative effect on their population.

Rhinocerceros: Not Just African Animals

When I think of rhinos I remember the old John Wayne movie Hitari that I saw as a kid. I can still see those images of the rhinos. Maybe that’s why I often think of rhinos only as African animals, but in reality there are two species are from Africa and also three species in Asia.

The African rhinoceros are the Black Rhinoceros and the White Rhinoceros (this name has nothing to do with color – see the animal facts page for an explanation). African rhinos don’t have teeth at the front of their mouths.

The Asian rhinoceros are the Javan, Sumatran and Indian. Only the white rhino is not endangered