Red Crowned Crane
The red-crowned crane is one of the most iconic, elegant, and most eye catching birds on the planet. Some of the countries it lives in see the red-crowned crane as a symbol of luck, fidelity, and longevity. It’s one of the biggest cranes in the world with a maximum height of 5.5 feet, a length of 5 feet, a wingspan of 8.5 feet, and a weight of 35 pounds. This crane gets its name for a small patch of featherless bare skin on its forehead or crown that becomes brighter when its mating season. Like many cranes, groups of 80 cranes migrate for 1,500 miles from southern Russia and northern China to Korea and east-central China for wintering months and then return to breed and raise babies in the summer. In Japan, they have a very small migration for 90 miles from the west in the summer to the east in the winter. Despite having the bill and neck design of a fishing bird, it’s actually an omnivore. In the mating season, like many birds, males do a dance courtship to impress the females. That display dance is what I’m depicting in my painting. They will bow their heads up and down over and over again, flap their wings, and leap into the air. If successful, they will mate for life and continue this dance ritual to strengthen their relationship. This bird is considered a threatened species with only 3,000 left in the wild. Threats to the crowned crane include pollution, agriculture expansion, fires made into monsters by climate change, invasive species, and the potential of a disease outbreak at a feeding ground. The International Crane Foundation, the main lead of conservation for cranes all around the world, is working to engage local communities and policy makers in conservation protected areas and the surrounding landscapes.
Giant Eland
The giant eland is the largest antelope on earth. At best, it can reach 10 feet long, 6 feet tall at the shoulder, and 2,700 pounds. It’s an antelope the size of a polar bear or a buffalo. Both male and female have very spiraled, V-shaped horns that can reach 4 feet long. Despite such a massive size, a giant eland can reach speeds of 45 miles per hour and jump 5 feet into the air. Because they are so big, their only natural predators are lions, large leopards, African wild dogs, spotted hyenas, and nile crocodiles. Even these predators will find it very tough and dangerous to kill them because this antelope with a huge mass, large horns, great wariness, and incredible agility can easily escape from and even fight off even a pride of lions. When a bull senses danger, he’ll warn his herd with deep-throated barks that will repeat until the whole herd is aware of the predator. Like many antelopes, they are social and live in herds of 15, 20, or 25 animals. The giant eland is listed as a threatened species with a population of 15,000. The 2 main threats to the giant eland are habitat loss for livestock ranching and overhunting for its rich meat for the bushmeat trade. WCN works on stopping the flow of bushmeat trade to prevent decimation of animals that are poached in Africa like the eland.
Gray Crowned Crane
The gray crowned crane is the most famous and recognizable bird in all of Africa. It's the national bird of Uganda and is found all across Sub-Saharan Africa. This is a social bird that often travels in flocks of 30 to 150 individuals. They're omnivores that eat plants, seeds, grain, insects, frogs, worms, small fish, aquatic animal eggs, and even snakes. Despite such popular association in art and flags, it's considered to be an endangered species because of wetland drainage, pesticide pollution, and livestock that overgraze their grass. The painting is inspired by the leader of the Rwanda Wildlife Conservation Association that aims to repopulate the country's crane population.
Cheetah
The cheetah is the fastest land animal and can reach in short bursts 75 miles per hour. But what's truly impressive is its acceleration, 0 to 60 in barely less than 3 seconds. While running, a cheetah can make quick turns and maneuver obstacles to. This extreme agility is due to the long flexible spring-like spine, shoulder blades that don't attach to the collar bones, a long, light weight, lean, and lanky body, a flat aerodynamic head, hips that can pivot in place, non retractable claws, a long tail, and extra large and powerful lungs and a huge heart with incredible beat strength. It's endangered because of habitat loss, poaching, competition with other more powerful predators, farmers killing them because of attacks on livestock, and an illegal pet trade for their cubs.
Axolotl
The axolotl is a species of amphibian that once lived in Lake Xochimilco, but now only lives in captivity. This salamander is likely the most unusual because unlike other salamanders, It lives It's entire life in water instead of moving on to land. But perhaps the most incredible fact is that it can regenerate any part of it's whole body completely with no surgery at all, even parts of the brain as well as the limbs. It also has the most genome of all animals, at least known to science for now. Despite all this, The axolotl is declared extinct in the wild because of pollution and non-native species like the African tilapia and the Asian carp. This painting was made for my friend Ian because he's fascinated by this creature.
Blue Iguana
The blue Iguana belongs on some islands south of Florida. Its a herbivore, meaning it only eats plants, like fruits and leafs fallen from trees.
They're endangered because of 2 problems, habitat loss due to farming, and poachers.
Asian Lion
The Asian lion has a smaller mane than the lions of Africa to help squeeze through the trees of the rainforest of India. They also have darker spots on the legs, chest, and belly to blend in with shadows of the jungle. Its endangered by deforestation and poaching.
For this painting I looked for all of the small shapes on the lion and the background and then painted them with different colors.
Clouded Leopard
The clouded leopard is the smallest of the big cats at 4 feet long with a 3 foot long tail, 2 feet tall at the shoulder, and weighing in at 48 pounds. Despite the small size, it has the longest canine teeth of any animal for it's size at up to 2 inches long, giving it the ability to yawn up to 105 degrees to sink the teeth in the neck of it's prey making this the last living saber-tooth cat on earth. It can hang upside down from branches and turn it's hind feet backwards to climb down trees head-first so it can climb very tall trees to chase prey and get away from predators. It's threatened from habitat loss, poachers, farmers that hate them because they think the cats would eat their livestock, and loss of prey.