environment by growing a thick, shaggy, winter coat; broad, split hooves to
keep from sinking into the sand; and two humps for storing fat when
foraging is poor.
Several species of wild asses are native to the interior of central
Asia. Among these are the Mongolian kulan and Iranian onager. Asses are
smaller than true horses and characterized by long ears, deep-set eyes
coarse, wiry manes, small feet and tails tipped with long hairs. They can
survive longer without water than other members of the horse family and are
able to get along on a small amount of food. Because of their sure-
footedness and endurance they are valuable beasts of burden and have been
domesticated for centuries.
The Eurasian grassland is home to the heaviest of all flying birds,
the 20 kg (45 lb) great bustard. And the world's smallest crane, the
demoiselle which stands just 1 m (39 in) tall, breeds on grasslands from
southeastern Europe into central Asia.
Several species of wild sheep and goats live on the grasslands and
adjacent mountains. Markhors and turs, both goats, range from Spain to
India and northward into Mongolia and Siberia. The tahr, a goatlike animal,
is found in the high Himalayas. Goats differ from sheep in that they have
beards, feet with scent glands, convex foreheads, and a definite odor among
the males.
Some of the world's most unusual mammals live in the mountains which
separate central Asia from India. One of the best known is the giant panda,
once considered a member of the raccoon family and now thought to be
related to bears. This animal lives on a diet consisting mainly of bamboo
shoots. For unknown reasons the bamboo is dying, which threatens the
pandas' future. The Chinese government has commissioned a team of
biologists to study the situation. Although giant pandas have rarely
reproduced in western zoos, a number of babies have been born in the
Beijing zoo through natural conception, and artificial insemination has
recently been successful.
The giant panda shares its bamboo forest with the lesser panda. This
animal looks like a raccoon but is related to the giant panda.
Central Asia is isolated from India and Burma by the Himalaya mountain
range, the highest mountains on earth. The area is so remote that little is
known about the behavior of many of its animals. It is the home of a collie-
sized gazelle, several species of wild sheep, and a member of the cow
family, the yak. The yak is also domesticated and has been a beast of
burden and supplier of milk, wool and fuel for many centuries.
One of the most beautiful of all Himalayan animals is the snow
leopard, or ounce. Its fur is in great demand and poaching has placed it in
grave danger of extinction.
The snow leopard's main prey is the bharal, or blue sheep, which lives
in the Himalayas and other high mountains in eastern Asia.
As one moves south from the high country, the character of the land
and its animals change. Rugged mountains give way to forested foothills.
This country is the northern edge of the sloth bear's range which also
includes other parts of India and Sri Lanka (Ceylon). Termites are a part
of the sloth bear's diet, and it sucks them in by a "vacuuming" process.
The bear rips open the termites' nest with its claws, then blows away the
dirt and dust, and starts sucking. Its lips protrude; its nostrils close to
keep out dirt.
Beyond the foothills, seasonal forests give way to semi-arid plains
and desert in India. Axis deer, nilgai (India's largest antelope) and
blackbuck live here. In the Gir Forest is the last remnant population of
the lions which once roamed from the Atlantic through the Near East and
into Asia. But lions have been gone from most of this range for many
centuries and exist today only in a protected reserve in the tiny Gir
Forest in western India, where a few hundred individuals survive.
Where one finds lions and other predators, scavengers will also be
found. In India they include striped hyenas, foxes, dholes (wild dogs), and
Indian white-backed vultures. These animals perform a vital function in the
balance of nature, cleaning up carrion left by the hunters, thus helping to
prevent the spread of disease.
Still farther south lies India's tropical forest, actually two of them
— a rain forest and a seasonally deciduous forest. They are home to a large
variety of monkeys, mainly of two groups — the short-tailed, stout-bodied
macaques, which are primarily terrestrial, and the long-tailed, slender-
bodied arboreal langurs.
The macaques include the rhesus monkey of India, sacred to the Hindus,
and critical to science. The existence of the Rh blood factor was first
demonstrated in rhesus monkeys, and a rhesus was the first living being
shot into space in the United States' space program. In Europe, the only
wild monkeys are the Barbary apes, actually macaques, of Gibraltar. Legend
has it that when these animals disappear — there are approximately 30 of
them — Britain's reign over the Rock will come to an end.
The second large group of Asian monkeys, the lan-gurs, are also called
leaf-eating monkeys. There are more than a dozen species, among which the
douc langur is considered to be one of the most beautiful of all monkeys.
The word "douc" means "monkey" in Vietnamese.
Three of the surviving five species of rhinoceroses live in
southeastern Asia. Two, the Sumatran and Javan rhinos, could be extinct in
the wild. The third, the Indian rhino, exists in small numbers in Assam.
Because of the heavy folds of skin and the bumps, called tubercules, on its
hips and shoulders, this rhino appears to be wearing a suit of armor.
The Chinese believe that rhino blood, urine, and horn (which is not a
true horn at all, but is composed of hair-like material) have medicinal and
aphrodisiacal powers. This superstition has resulted in heavy poaching of
rhinos, placing them in grave danger.
Among the better-known snakes of southeastern Asia are the Indian and
king cobras and the pythons. A king cobra can measure 3.5 m (12 ft) or
more. It feeds mainly on other snakes. The closely related Indian, or
Asian, cobra is appreciably smaller. The pythons are non-venomous
constrictors. Contrary to popular belief they do not crush their victims to
death but, through constriction, cause death through suffocation.
Southeastern Asia is the home of some of the showiest of all birds —
the pheasants. Although native to Asia, they have been introduced elsewhere
and now are among the most widely distributed of birds. One of the most
widespread is the ringneck pheasant. An old legend claims that ringnecks
were introduced into Greece by Jason, famous for his quest of the golden
fleece. Ringnecks were brought to the United States in the mid-1800's and
are now game birds. Several species of pheasants are exhibited at the Zoo,
two of them roaming freely on the grounds.
The first is the blue peafowl. The male, called a peacock, is the
traditional symbol of vanity and false pride because of its almost constant
displaying and strutting. The peafowl has been semi-domesticated for ages.
A Greek myth relates how the bird got the eye-like spots on its tail. The
peacock was a favored pet of Juno, wife of Jupiter. She became angry at her
one-hundred-eyed servant, Argus, because of a misdeed on his part. To
punish him and to make sure the world remembered his offense, she snatched
out his hundred eyes and scattered them on the tail of her pet peacock.
There they remain to this day.
The other pheasant that wanders the Zoo grounds is the junglefowl. It
looks much like a domestic chicken — understandably since it is the
chicken's ancestor.
Anthropologists think the chicken was first domesticated about 4000
B.C. as a fighting bird. Evidence suggests that the first chickens in the
New World came with Polynesian sailors. The most ornamental of all domestic
chickens are the long-tailed birds bred by the Japanese, some having tail
feathers 6 m (20 ft) long.
The hot, humid rain forests of southeastern Asia hold a profusion of
wildlife, much of it arboreal. Among these tree dwellers, primates reign,
and within this group, the anthropoid — manlike — apes are royalty. Two of
earth's four kinds of manlike apes live in southeastern Asia.
The smallest and most agile of these are the gibbons and siamangs.
These apes are light-bodied, long-armed and have long, slender hands. Their
generic name, Hylobates, means "tree dweller." They are truly champion
acrobats, swinging hand over hand and leaping more than 9 m (30 ft) from
one branch to the next. On large branches they usually walk upright,
holding their arms aloft for balance. Gibbons live in family groups of two
to six animals within well defined territories. Their morning whooping,
often heard at the Zoo, is a territorial call to warn off other gibbons.
The second anthropoid of southeastern Asia is the slow, retiring orangutan.
Its name means "old man of the forest," and the orang does seem the most
human of the apes. Unlike the gibbon, it is a loner. The species used to be
widespread throughout the islands of southeastern Asia but extinction came
early on all but Borneo and Sumatra. If we read the evidence correctly,
prehistoric man hunted orangutans for food and could have been partly
responsible for their disappearance from most of the range. Today fewer
than 5,000 individuals remain, and despite strenuous efforts to save them,
