Creature Feature #535: Onager

The Onager is an endangered equine. Once widespread across the central to southwest Asian countries, her range has now diminshed significantly due to poaching and habitat loss. Despite her resemblance to the domestic donkey, the Onager is notoriously untamable. Females live in small groups with their offspring, grazing on abundant grasses during the wet season and browsing leaves in the dry. She will also crack seed pods and demolish wood vegetation with her hooves.

Creature Feature #534: Olm

Olm are a species of cave-dwelling salamander. Due to the nature of his home - deep below the earth with no light source - the Olm is not only blind, but his eyes are undeveloped. He leads an entirely aquatic lifestyle, never leaving the water, and exhibits neotony (as also seen in the axolotl and the mudpuppy) retaining his gills into adulthood. His sense of smell and hearing are excellent, and help him locate  prey - in the form of crustaceans, molluscs and insects. Gregarious in nature, Olm will gather together beneath rocks. Sexually active males, however, become territorial.

Olm are found in European cave systems and are Vulnerable to extinction.

Creature Feature #533: Olingo

The Olingo are found in Central and South America and bear a striking resemblance to their cousin, the kinkajou. There are four species, including the newly discovered Olinguito. She is arboreal, roaming the canopy at night in search of her favourite food: figs. Her diet consists almost exclusively of fruit, but during the dry season - when fruit becomes  scarce - she drinks nectar and will ocasionally hunt small mammals. She can be distringuished from the kinkajou by her tail, which is not prehensile but used for balance.

The Olinguito is remarkedly similar - which is why she evaded identification until recent years (finally being identified as a distinct species in 2013). One female even lived for a year in Washington's National Zoo, where she showed no interest what-so-ever in breeding with her Olingo cage-mates. She is smaller in size with thicker fur, smaller ears and a shorter tail.

Like their relatives, the kinkajou and the racoon, Olingo are taxonomically classified as Carnivora but follow a largely vegetarian diet.

Creature Feature #532: Okapi

The Okapi is a mysterious ungulate, found in the heart of Africa's rainforest. Her closed relative is the giraffe, which with she shares a similar body structure - but has a much shorter neck. She uses her 35 cm long tongue to strip the leaves from branches. Solitary in nature, she roams her territory by well-worn paths and only comes into contact with the males to mate. Her striped legs originally led the early explorers to believe she was some sort of rainforest zebra, and she is so solitary and elusive that she was not known to the Western world until 1901. Now, due to poaching and deforestation, she is facing extinction and is classified as Endangered.

Creature Feature #531: Octopus

The Octopus are an Order of Cephalopod, named for their eight limbs. As he has no external or internal skeleton - aside from his bony beak - he is among the most flexible of invertebrates. Octopus are able to escape through very small openings. He is also noted for his intelligence and has been shown to be capable of problem solving as well as having a good memory. He has been known to break out of his aquarium and into another one in search of food (small fish, crustaceans). Large wild octopus have even been known to catch sea birds and attack sharks.

This particular Octopus is Australia's Blue-ringed Octopus. Like many Australian residents, he is deadly.  Most Octopus are venomous to a degree, but the venom of the Blue-ringed can kill a human. It is a neurotoxin, resulting in heart failure, nausea, respiratory attack, paralysis, blindness and sometimes death from asphyxiation. There is currently no anti-venom.

Creature Feature #530:Ocelot

The Ocelot is a South American wild cat with a range extending through Central America and as far north as Texas. Like most small wild cats he is territorial, nocturnal and generally solitary. His preferred prey is animals smaller than himself: rodents, birds, reptiles and amphibians. He tracks their scent trails but also has strong night vision. Although he only meets up with females long enough to mate, he will sometimes share a his daytime sleeping place with another male Ocelot. Ocelots are occasionally kept as pets - Salvador Dali owned one - but like all non-domesticated exotics, they are unpredictable and can be dangerous or damaging.

Creature Feature #529: Jackalope

The Jackalope is an unusual species of hare. He was first discovered in Wyoming in the 1930s, and has since spread into South Dakota and further south, through the open prairies, as far as Texas. He is a creature of the open plains, relying on extreme bursts of speed to evade predation. Both male and female Jackalopes are horned, although the male's rack is generally more impressive, and used for defense and in courtship displays. Jackalope communicate using a vast array of calls and engage in mimicry: singing to cattle at night or joining in on campfire songs.