The Hawaiian monk seal has a streamlined body to help in swimming. Their front and back limbs are flipper-like. The front flippers are smaller than the back flippers. The front flippers have five digits. The hind flippers cannot be turned forward, so they must wiggle when on land. In the water, they propel themselves by moving the hind flippers and use their front flippers as rudders. They are dark gray on their back side and silvery gray on their stomachs. Males are approximately seven feet long and weigh about 400 pounds. Female Hawaiian monk seals are larger than males, up to 7.5 feet long and weigh up to 600 pounds. Once found throughout the Hawaiian Islands, the Hawaiian monk seal is now found only in the remote Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.
The turtle has very thick leather for skin, which is one of the reasons why it is endangered. Its hard shell is one of the turtle’s defensives. Turtles live in a variety of places. They have a lifespan of around 50-150. Turtles are very fast at swimming but are not so cean on land, this is because there feet are flipper-like and they have to wiggle around. But in water they can propel them selves in high speeds.
The elephant is endangered because of its tusks and its rough skin. Elephants live in Asia and in Africa, because of the habitat. Elephants weigh about 12,000 pounds and stands roughly 10 feet tall at the shoulder. The smaller forest elephant weighs 10,000 pounds at most.
The whooping crane is classified as a member of the order Gruiformes (Cranes, rails, trumpeters) and is a member of the family Gruidae. It is classified as an endangered species due to an estimated population of less than 250 mature cranes. The whooping crane can be found in Canada and the United States.
The sloth has long gray or brown hair that blends in well with the surrounding environment, making it difficult for predators, such as the jaguar, to see them. They grow to a length of between one and a half and two and a half feet (in about 2 1/2 years).They eat leaves and buds. The two-toed species also eat twigs, fruits, and small prey . Their low rate of metabolism enables them to live on relatively little food.
The blue whale is the largest mammal, possibly the largest animal, to ever inhabit the earth.The blue whale is blue-gray in color, but often with lighter gray mottling on a darker background (or with darker spots on a lighter background). The underside of its flippers may be a lighter color or white, while the ventral (underside) of the fluke is dark. The blue whale is thought to feed almost exclusively on small, shrimp-like creatures called euphausiids or krill. During the summer feeding season the blue whale gorges itself, consuming an astounding 4 tons (3.6 metric tons) or more each day. This means it may eat up to 40 million krill a day.
