Because its black and white head is reminiscent of a typical religious habit, the white-cheeked goose is also called the barnacle goose. The two pointed horns above the eyes gave the desert devil its name. The wildlife is more clerical than you think.
The nun lives from Central and Western Europe to East Asia. It belongs to the family of the carrier moths (Lymantriidae). She has a wingspan of four to five centimeters. The nun lives primarily in coniferous forests, especially fond of spruce and pine trees. In mass breeding, barnacle geese can eat entire trees bare. Nun lays up to 300 eggs in multiple clutches.
Nun butterflies fly from July to September. On the other hand, the northern European barnacle geese (Branta leucopsis), which owe their name to their black and white plumage, fly all year round, from January to December. They are neither related nor related by marriage to the Central European monk warbler, which is about 20 grams tiny, nor to the colorful South American monk parakeet (Myiopsitta monachus), which is 100 grams small. Nor with the brown monk or cowbird vulture (Aegypius monachus) from southern Europe, which weighs up to twelve kilos. He can reach a span of up to three meters – probably more than any other monk or cowl bearer.
Like the nuns, the monks are nocturnal moths and former caterpillars. Their names are pretty and capture the imagination: Pale Wormwood Monk (Cucullia absinthii), Silver Monk, Shadow Monk, Gray Monk (Cucullia umbratica), Brown Monk (Woolly Owl) or King Owl Monk.
"Religious communities" in the animal world
To water there are naturally just as order representatives as to land and in the air. Leading the way is "Monachus monachus," the Mediterranean monk seal. Unfortunately, this diurnal piscivore has become one of the rarest mammals in Europe, with only about 350 to 450 specimens estimated to remain.
Individual religious communities are also represented in the animal kingdom in many ways. The capuchin monkeys, for example, primates from the New World monkey family. They are omnivorous forest dwellers that live in groups. The hooded capuchins are a sub-species. Completely unshod is the mitra carmelita, the Carmelite cone snail. The Dominican finch – who is also a cardinal – was able to celebrate the 800th anniversary of its founding in 2016. The Dominican slithers (Solenodon paradoxis), a cute contemporary that lives in small congregations of up to eight specimens and, incidentally, also likes to eat nuns.
The spiritual hierarchy, of course, starts at the bottom with the Common Poor Church Mouse (Mus ecclesiasticus pauper). It is as widespread as it is poor in influence. More and more often she simply stays away. The class of spiritual vessels begins with the bullfinch or bullfinch. Its conservation status is not endangered, although declining.
The tropical cone snails, a genus of predatory carnivores, have a very hierarchical structure. These invertebrates are also called mitra snails. Strongly retreated the mitre eremitarum. More prominent: the prelate cone snail (mitra episcopalis), then the cardinal cone snail and, on top, the pope's crown cone snail (mitra mitra or voluta mitra papalis).
While there are not too many animal offshoots of the Roman head of the church on water and in the air – the ugly St. Peter's fish, for example (Zeus faber; also called the herring king) and the colorful pope finch – his senators are more widespread. Very much to suspect that this is a tribute to her service color: cardinal red.
Desert devils and devil rays
In the order of the passerine birds there is a whole family with 45 species: the cardinals (Cardinalidae). Their weight is significantly less than that of their human confreres; and their home is by no means Italy, but mainly North and South America. The Red Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) is also called the "Virginian Nightingale" – unlike the Purple Cardinal, the Yellow-shouldered Cardinal or the Grey-bellied Cardinal.
As with the real pope advisors, there are also several classes of singing cardinal sparrows. Cyanocompsa include the ultramarine bishop, the steel bishop, the lasur bishop and the turquoise bishop. Their brothers in the sea: the cardinal soldierfish (Plectrypops lima) and the cardinal perch. Of its 350 species, most in the male sex are mouth breeders. In the aquarium, for example, the pajama cardinalfish reacts very sensitively.
In the supratemporal finally this Wunderkammer (Panoptikum) of the clergy-like ends: from the bad desert devil (Moloch horridus) and the legendary hell dog (Cerberus) over the gigantic devil ray and the unhappy sea devil up to the thieving paradise magpie.