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The harpy eagle is endangered mainly because of habitat loss and hunting.

there is a probability that about 30 percent of the Manatees will be extinct in the next three generations (90 years).

The majors threats to its population are loss of habitat and capture for commercial pet markets.

Camel spiders became an Internet sensation during the Iraq war of 2003, when rumors of their bloodthirsty nature began to circulate online. Many tales were accompanied with photos purporting to show spiders half the size of a human. For many years, Middle Eastern rumors have painted camel spiders as large, venomous predators, as fast as a running human, with a voracious appetite for large mammals. The myths are untrue. These creatures do not actually eat camels' stomachs or sleeping soldiers, and they are not so large—but the real camel spider is still an amazing predator. The camel spider's history of misinformation begins with a misidentification. Camel spiders are not even spiders. Like spiders, they are members of the class Arachnida, but they are actually solpugids. Camel spiders, also called wind scorpions and Egyptian giant solpugids (SAHL-pyoo-jids), are only about 6 inches (15 centimeters) long. Photos that purport to show creatures six times that size have misleading perspective—the spider is invariably placed in the foreground where the lens makes it appear much bigger than its actual size. True, they are fast, but only compared to other arachnids. Their top speed is estimated at 10 miles (16 kilometers) per hour. Camel spiders are not deadly to humans (though their bite is painful), but they are vicious predators that can visit death upon insects, rodents, lizards, and small birds. These hardy desert dwellers boast large, powerful jaws, which can be up to one-third of their body length. They use them to seize their victims and turn them to pulp with a chopping or sawing motion. Camel spiders are not venomous, but they do utilize digestive fluids to liquefy their victims' flesh, making it easy to suck the remains into their stomachs.

Most nonhuman primates live in tropical and subtropical areas of the new world and old world. Most primates live an arboreal lifestyle, that is, they travel, eat, and sleep in the tops of trees. Even the larger apes, like chimpanzees and orangutans, usually sleep in leafy nests they make in trees. The most notable exceptions to this behavior are gorillas and humans. Both are ground dwellers.

As primates evolved over the past 50-60 million years, two important things happened. 1) Their faces flattened and the eyes moved to the front of the head, giving them binocular vision. 2) They developed hands with separate fingers and opposable thumbs. This allowed them to grasp and hold on to branches and other objects.

If It's Been Around So Long, Why Have I never Heard Of It Before Now? I guess there are still a lot of secrets in the South American Rainforests. The recent explosion in the popularity of Jagua body art just goes to show that there are many possibilities still out there that the outside world has not even noticed. More importantly it goes to show that local traditional knowledge is incredibly important to the whole world, not just the local people of the Rainforest. So every effort should be made to help preserve it.

If It's Been Around So Long, Why Have I never Heard Of It Before Now? I guess there are still a lot of secrets in the South American Rainforests. The recent explosion in the popularity of Jagua body art just goes to show that there are many possibilities still out there that the outside world has not even noticed. More importantly it goes to show that local traditional knowledge is incredibly important to the whole world, not just the local people of the Rainforest. So every effort should be made to help preserve it.

Where Can I Get Hold Of Some Jagua Then? Well you could take a trip out to the rainforests and search it out yourself. But if your going to paint from an unripe fruit, you only have a short time to do it, before the stain stops working. But recently Jagua Body Art products like Jagua Paint and Jagua Gel have been made readily available to you so you can create your own jagua tattoos whenever you like.

The People…

Work…

Playtime…

Jaguar Jaguars (Panthera onca) are the largest felid species in the New World and the only member of the genus Panthera, the roaring cats, that occurs in the Americas. They are the third largest cat species, being outsized only by lions (P. leo) and tigers (P. trigris). Although not the largest felid, jaguars have the strongest jaw in relation to head size of any of the cats, a fact that should be remembered whenever planning to capture and immobilize these animals. The body weight of jaguars is 90 - 120 kg for males and 60 - 90 kg for females, with a large variation in body size. Jaguars live in a wide variety of tropical habitats, ranging from montane forest and wet savannah to tropical rain forest and deciduous tropical forest. The largest documented jaguars occur in wet savannahs while jaguars that live in more forested regions tend to be smaller in size

Physical appearance: Jaguars are the largest cat in the western hemisphere. In comparison with the leopard, the jaguar is generally larger and much stockier, with a broad heavy head, much shorter legs and tail (a good visual description might be a leopard on steroids). The background of the jaguar's coat is a tawny-yellow, like many of the Asiatic leopards, and lightened to whitish on the throat and belly. The jaguar is marked with small isolated spots on the head and neck with dark open ring structures, rosettes,on the sides and flank that generally contain one to four dark spots inside the rings. Interestingly, the rosettes of the leopard and the jaguar are almost identical with the exception of the jaguar having spots "inside" the rosettes where the leopard has none. Along the middle of the jaguar's back, a row of black spots may merge into a solid line. According to one Indian myth, the jaguar acquired its spotted coat by daubing mud on its body with its paws.

An ostrich is the fastest bird and can run up to 70 km/h.

Mammals are the only creatures that have flaps around their ears.

Reptiles have been around for 300 million years, and during the age of the dinosaurs, they ruled the Earth. Those days are long gone, and those giants have vanished, but some 6,500 species of reptiles still thrive today. Crocodiles, snakes, lizards, and turtles are all reptiles. Most reptiles live on land, and most lay eggs. They are vertebrates, and, unlike any other animals, are covered in scales. They are cold-blooded, and regulate their body temperature by seeking or avoiding the sun's heat.

Eaten Any Wood Today? You may have! And you probably brushed your teeth with it. Chances are you even dressed with wood. Skeptical? Don’t be. We’re all familiar with forest products like lumber, furniture, and paper. But few of us realize how many different things we regularly use that are manufactured from trees. In fact, more than 5,000 wood and paper products make our lives better each day. Here are just a few: Fruits and NutsFruit from trees such as apples and peaches, as well as nuts from trees such as walnuts, are all favorite products grown on trees. Bandage StripsTree gum, sap extracted from trees, makes the adhesive on bandage strips stick to your skin. Baseball BatsThe white ash tree is a hardwood that is used to make baseball bats—including, of course, Kentucky’s own Louisville Slugger! CandlesTree gum can be used to make candles. ClothingCellulose is used to produce rayon and acetate, which can be used to make a vast array of clothing such as ties, shirts, dresses, and suits. CombsWood pulp and cellulose can be used to make plastics for items such as hair combs. Cough SyrupCellulose products, used for their even-flowing consistency, often thicken cough syrups and other liquid oral medicines. CrackersNot only is the cracker box a product of trees, but the crackers themselves can be made using a high-purity cellulose. CrayonsGum extracted from trees can help make crayons. Eyeglass FramesCellulose wood fibers are dissolved and can then be formed into molded articles like eyeglass frames. Football HelmetsEthyl cellulose is responsible for making the hard, impact-resistant plastics found in football helmets. GumGum and synthesized essential oils from trees can be used to make chewing gum. Ice CreamIce cream can be made with cellulose, which comes from trees. LipstickCellulose can help give lipstick its easy-apply texture. MakeupMakeup sometimes gets its creamy texture from the tree derivative cellulose. Maple SyrupSap from trees is used to make syrup. Milk CartonsMilk cartons can be made from pulpwood. Nail PolishNail polish contains nitrocellulose to help make the polish glossy when it dries. NewspaperPulpwood is used to make newspaper, wrapping paper, book paper, and wallpaper. PaintMethylcellulose, a product made from cellulose, gives paints their thick consistency. Parmesan CheeseCellulose powder is sometimes used to help keep grated Parmesan cheese pieces from caking together. PencilsTree logs are used to make pencils. PerfumeTree bark is used to make “tall oil,” which cosmetic companies can use to make perfumes. Photo FilmLogs are reduced to pulp, and the pulp is processed to create cellulose acetate chemicals that can be used to make photographic film. ShampooMethylcellulose can be used to thicken shampoo and conditioner. Without it, they would just be soapy water! SpongesCellulose is broken down into chemicals that can be used to make sponges. TiresTree-produced chemicals can be used for making the synthetic rubber found in tires. Toilet PaperWood pulp makes paper products such as toilet tissue, paper towels, napkins, and facial tissue. ToothpasteCellulose can be used in toothpaste to give it a paste-like consistency.

A Dwarf is a creature from Germanic mythologies, fairy tales, fantasy fiction, and role-playing games. It usually has magical talents, often involving metallurgy. The original concept of Dwarves is very difficult to determine. Sources have gradually given Dwarves more comical and superstitious roles[1]. Dwarves were certainly humanoid, but sources differ over their lifestyles, and their similarity to Elves. They may have had a strong associations with death[2][3]: paled skin; dark hair; connections with the earth; their role in mythology. They followed animistic traditions, showing similarities to such concepts of the dead. They were similar to others from the 'Vættir' family, such as Elves.[2]

Rackham. Grouping Mythological creature Fairy Country Northern Europe

Wizards are always in pursuit of knowledge. The grimoire or book of magical knowledge contains all the facts a wizard needs to know. It included spells, to charms, divinations, potions.

Poverty in Asia,caste and progress. In this FAO Poverty In Asia map, Darker is Poorer but some light areas are just 'no data' - see our Poor in a Rich World page.A majority of the worlds poorest people today are in Asia - partly because it holds a majority of the world's population. Of course some Asian countries like Japan and South Korea are not as poor as others like India and Cambodia, with Asian poverty being concentrated in South Asia.  Asian poverty1. Poverty in some Asian countries is largely due to the pressure of population growth on scarce resources and inadequate governments allowing strongly negative caste discrimination. 2. Education, medicine, clean water and sanitation are often inadequate also3. In some Asian countries land ownership being problematic also encourages poverty. 4. Asia till recently attracted less foreign investment than Latin America, but more of it has been stable longer-term European investment. Some of Asia has shown good progress on poverty in recent years, like China and South Korea. (in China noteably helped partly by controls on population growth)  But Asia, holding the largest populations, still has many extreme poor. The current world recession is also causing family remittances from overseas workers or migrant workers to fall. As more migrant workers lose jobs in Western Europe and the USA, remittances to their poor families in Central Asia are being hit hard. And the likely prospect for aid in the short term is a sharp fall.

# The new green selected food crops have been helping in reducing poverty in Asia, but the newer genetically modified food crops and their monopoly providers seem to have been unhelpful to date ? See South Asia Land Management  - SACEP pdf 1.5 mb # For one small charity trying to do some good extreme-poverty work in India today, see SEED at seedkolkata.org or for another similar good small extreme-poverty charity working in Cambodia, see the Sao Sara Foundation at ssfcambodia.org Good small charities like these often lack the money they need to do as much as they would like. # For facts about individual countries, see NationMaster

Microfinance is the provision of financial services to low-income clients, including consumers and the self-employed, who traditionally lack access to banking and related services. More broadly, it is a movement whose object is "a world in which as many poor and near-poor households as possible have permanent access to an appropriate range of high quality financial services, including not just credit but also savings, insurance, and fund transfers."[1] Those who promote microfinance generally believe that such access will help poor people out of poverty

Traditionally, banks have not provided financial services, such as loans, to clients with little or no cash income. Banks incur substantial costs to manage a client account, regardless of how small the sums of money involved. For example, the total profit for a bank from delivering 100 loans worth $1,000 each will not differ greatly from the revenue that results from delivering one loan of $100,000. But the fixed cost of processing loans of any size is considerable as assessment of potential borrowers, their repayment prospects and security; administration of outstanding loans, collecting from delinquent borrowers, etc., has to be done in all cases. There is a break-even point in providing loans or deposits below which banks lose money on each transaction they make. Poor people usually fall below that breakeven point. In addition, most poor people have few assets that can be secured by a bank as collateral. As documented extensively by Hernando de Soto and others, even if they happen to own land in the developing world, they may not have effective title to it.[2] This means that the bank will have little recourse against defaulting borrowers. Seen from a broader perspective, the development of a healthy national financial system has long been viewed as a catalyst for the broader goal of national economic development (see for example Alexander Gerschenkron, Paul Rosenstein-Rodan, Joseph Schumpeter, Anne Krueger ). However, the efforts of national planners and experts to develop financial services for most people have often failed in developing countries, for reasons summarized well by Adams, Graham & Von Pischke in their classic analysis 'Undermining Rural Development with Cheap Credit'.[3] Because of these difficulties, when poor people borrow they often rely on relatives or a local moneylender, whose interest rates can be very high. An analysis of 28 studies of informal moneylending rates in 14 countries in Asia, Latin America and Africa concluded that 76% of moneylender rates exceed 10% per month, including 22% that exceeded 100% per month. Moneylenders usually charge higher rates to poorer borrowers than to less poor ones.[4] While moneylenders are often demonized and accused of usury, their services are convenient and fast, and they can be very flexible when borrowers run into problems. Hopes of quickly putting them out of business have proven unrealistic, even in places where microfinance institutions are active.[citation needed] Over the past centuries practical visionaries, from the Franciscan monks who founded the community-oriented pawnshops of the 15th century, to the founders of the European credit union movement in the 19th century (such as Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen) and the founders of the microcredit movement in the 1970s (such as Muhammad Yunus) have tested practices and built institutions designed to bring the kinds of opportunities and risk-management tools that financial services can provide to the doorsteps of poor people.[5] While the success of the Grameen Bank (which now serves over 7 million poor Bangladeshi women) has inspired the world, it has proved difficult to replicate this success. In nations with lower population densities, meeting the operating costs of a retail branch by serving nearby customers has proven considerably more challenging. Hans Dieter Seibel, board member of the European Microfinance Platform, is in favour of the group model. This particular model (used by many Microfinance institutions) makes financial sense, he says, because it reduces transaction costs. Microfinance programmes also need to be based on local funds. Local Roots Although much progress has been made, the problem has not been solved yet, and the overwhelming majority of people who earn less than $1 a day, especially in the rural areas, continue to have no practical access to formal sector finance. Microfinance has been growing rapidly with $25 billion currently at work in microfinance loans.[6] It is estimated that the industry needs $250 billion to get capital to all the poor people who need it.[6] The industry has been growing rapidly, and concerns have arisen that the rate of capital flowing into microfinance is a potential risk unless managed well.[7]

The amount of money spent has been estimated at more than $1 trillion, which makes World War II more expensive than all other wars combined.