South America

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South America N E SOUTH AMERICA W S P A Most names for a mammal M Some of this vast continent’s desert habitats haven’t In the English language alone, the puma 20 E has over 40 names including cougar, O T H N seen rain for 400 years, but - just like its rainforests panther, mountain lion, painter, and tropical glaciers - they still teem with wildlife. catamount (short for “cat-of-the- 25 17 mountain”) and deer tiger. Many sub-species also have their own names, 1 9 such as Florida panther and Yuma cougar. 8 18 21 10 Largest toucan 29 5 The toco toucan can grow to a length of 65 cm (2 ft 1 in), a third of which is its enormous bill. This feature is made 22 26 of keratin, which is what claws (and 3 human fingernails) are formed of. The 6 11 colourful beak includes air pockets too, so isn’t as heavy as it looks. 15 27 KEY 1. Scarlet ibis 4 12 19 2. Bottlenose dolphin (highest 2 23 jump for a dolphin) 16 3. Scarlet macaw 4. Golden poison-dart frog 5. Howler monkey (noisiest land 28 animal) 6. Green anaconda 13 7. Great white shark (largest Most poisonous frog 20 predatory fish) 4 8. Hummingbird Although it’s smaller than a woman’s 9. Sloth thumb, a single golden poison-dart 33 10. Hyacinth macaw (longest frog contains enough toxin to kill parrot) 10 men! For centuries, the deadly 7 11. Red-bellied piranha liquid was used to tip hunters’ 24 12. Black pacu blowgun darts, which is how this 29 13. Guanaco Colombian species earned its name. 14. Brown pelican (smallest 31 pelican) 15. Capybara (largest rodent) 16. Vicuña ( ) 6 Heaviest snake smallest camelid 17. Boto (largest river dolphin) Green anacondas live in the swamps of 14 18. Caiman tropical South America and Trinidad. 19. Jaguar (strongest bite for a One female, found in Brazil in 1960, was big cat relative to body size) 8.4 m (27 ft 6 in) long and measured 1.1 m 30 34 20. Puma (cougar) (3 ft 7 in) around – the same as a large 21. South American tapir 36 man’s chest. She weighed 500 lb (227 kg): 32 22. Giant anteater heavier than three washing machines! 23. Maned wolf 24. Opossum 35 25. Iguana 26. Peccary Slowest mammal Largest living bird of prey 27. Rhea 9 The three-toed sloth moves so little The Andean condor has a wingspan of up to 3.2 m (10 ft 5 in), and can 28. Coypu that algae grows on its furry coat, 29. Toco toucan giving it a greenish tint. It has a weigh as much as a four-year-old child. Being so heavy, it prefers to 30. Andean condor painfully slow walking speed, but in 30 31. Armadillo live in high, windy areas where it can trees, where it spends most of its 32. Chilean flamingo life, it can move twice as fast: up to glide on air currents. Condors are 33. Seagull 4.6 m (15 ft) per minute. vultures, so feed mostly on carrion. 34. Viscacha 35. Alpaca 36. Magellanic penguin.
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