by , Keeper
I have worked in the animal department for about 5 years. Some of my favorites include ferrets and birds. I am also known for my weird obsession with things relevant to the 80's.
I work Tuesday-Saturday and can be seen training our pigs on occasion.
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What is that?!

January 29th, 2012

I was looking for ideas to blog about and thought that I haven’t done one of these “What is that?!”in a while. I stumbled on a picture of this.

 

SAIGA

Photo:Wikipedia

I had never seen or heard of this animal before. I did a little reading and this is what I have found.

As you can see, these guys have a huge nose that hang over their mouth. The purpose of this is to control temperature, it warms and moistens the air in the winter and in the summer it can act as a filter for dust. They are found in Russia,Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Mongolia and was once thought to be present long ago in North America. The population used to be about 1 million and now has drastically been reduced to about 50,000 due to poaching and habitat destruction.

If you want to know more about this animal I found this site to be helpful.

http://edgeofexistence.org/mammals/species_info.php?id=62

 

Join the conversation:

  1. It’s ALF! The females in particular bear a striking resemblance.

    Posted by Natalie
    10:13 pm on January 29, 2012

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