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Gun-Galuut Nature Reserve
Gun-Galuut Nature Reserve, south-east of Ulaanbaatar, has a great diversity of ecosystems even though it has a comparatively small area. The complex of high mountains, steppes, rivers, lakes and wetlands are kept in their original condition. Visitors to Gun-Galuut see vast steppes seeming to meet the sky, the imposing mountains of Baits and Berkh, the homeland of rare creatures, Ikh-Gun and Ayaga lakes, a paradise of birds, Kherlen, the longest river of Mongolia and the Tsengiin Burd wetland, where water and wetland birds lay their eggs. Fauna Although limited research has been carried out on the reserve's fauna, 63 mammal species, 81 bird species, three amphibian species and 38 fish species have been recorded, including a number of nationally and globally threatened species. Among the more common mammal species are the gray wolf, Tarbagan marmot, souslik (ground squirrel), pika, vole, fox, corsac and jerboa. Globally threatened species include the argali (mountain sheep), Siberia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mongolia
Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 million, making it the world's most sparsely populated sovereign nation. Mongolia is the world's largest landlocked country that does not border a closed sea, and much of its area is covered by grassy steppe, with mountains to the north and west and the Gobi Desert to the south. Ulaanbaatar, the capital and largest city, is home to roughly half of the country's population. The territory of modern-day Mongolia has been ruled by various nomadic empires, including the Xiongnu, the Xianbei, the Rouran, the First Turkic Khaganate, and others. In 1206, Genghis Khan founded the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous land empire in history. His grandson Kublai Khan conquered China proper and established the Yuan dynasty. After the co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Argali
The argali (''Ovis ammon''), also known as the mountain sheep, is a wild sheep that roams the highlands of western East Asia, the Himalayas, Tibet, and the Altai Mountains. Description The name 'argali' is the Mongolian word for wild sheep. It is the largest species of wild sheep. Argali stand high at the shoulder and measure long from the head to the base of the tail. The female, or ewe is the smaller sex by a considerable margin, sometimes weighing less than half as much as the male, or ram. The ewes can weigh from and the rams typically from , with a maximum reported mass of . The Pamir argali (also called Marco Polo sheep, for they were first described by that traveler), ''O. a. polii'', is the largest race on average, regularly measuring more than long without the tail, and is less sexually dimorphic in body mass than most other subspecies. The argali has relatively the shortest tail of any wild goat-antelope or sheep, with reported tail lengths of . The general colo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bar-headed Goose
The bar-headed goose (''Anser indicus'') is a goose that breeds in Central Asia in colonies of thousands near mountain lakes and winters in South Asia, as far south as peninsular India. It lays three to eight eggs at a time in a ground nest. It is known for the extreme altitudes it reaches when migrating across the Himalayas. Taxonomy The grey goose genus ''Anser'' has no other member indigenous to the Indian region, nor any at all to the Ethiopian, Australian, or Neotropical regions. Ludwig Reichenbach placed the bar-headed goose in the monotypic genus ''Eulabeia'' in 1852, though John Boyd's taxonomy treats both ''Eulabeia'' and the genus ''Chen'' as subgenera of ''Anser''. Description The bird is pale grey and is easily distinguished from any of the other grey geese of the genus ''Anser'' by the black bars on its head. It is also much paler than the other geese in this genus. In flight, its call is a typical goose honking. A mid-sized goose, it measures in total length and w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Whooper Swan
The whooper swan ( /ˈhuːpə(ɹ) swɒn/) (''Cygnus cygnus''), also known as the common swan, pronounced ''hooper swan'', is a large northern hemisphere swan. It is the Eurasian counterpart of the North American trumpeter swan, and the type species for the genus '' Cygnus''. Taxonomy Francis Willughby and John Ray's ''Ornithology'' of 1676 referred to this swan as "the Elk, Hooper, or wild Swan". It was one of the many bird species originally described by Carl Linnaeus in the 1758 10th edition of his ''Systema Naturae'', where it was given the binomial name of ''Anas cygnus''. The species name is from ''cygnus'', the Latin for "swan". Description The whooper swan is similar in appearance to Bewick's swan. It is larger, however, at a length of and a wingspan of . The weight is typically in the range of , with an average of for males and for females. The verified record mass was for a wintering male from Denmark. It is considered to be amongst the heaviest flying birds. Amon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Swan Goose
The swan goose (''Anser cygnoides'') is a large goose with a natural breeding range in inland Mongolia, northernmost China, and the Russian Far East. It is migratory and winters mainly in central and eastern China. Vagrant birds are encountered in Japan and Korea (where it used to winter in numbers when it was more common), and more rarely in Kazakhstan, Laos, coastal Siberia, Taiwan, Thailand and Uzbekistan. While uncommon in the wild, this species has been domesticated. Introduced and feral populations of its domestic breeds occur in many places outside its natural range. The wild form is also kept in collections, and escapes are not unusual amongst feral flocks of other ''Anser'' and ''Branta'' geese. Description The swan goose is large and long-necked for its genus, wild birds being long (the longest ''Anser'' goose) and weighing or more (the second-heaviest ''Anser'', after the greylag goose, ''A. anser''). The sexes are similar, although the male is larger, with a prop ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hooded Crane
The hooded crane (''Grus monacha'') is a crane native to East Asia and a frequent migratory bird in Japan. Description It has a grey body. The top of the neck and head is white, except for a patch of bare red skin above the eye. It is one of the smallest cranes, but is still a fairly large bird, at 1 m (3.3 ft) long, a weight of 3.7 kg (8.2 lbs) and a wingspan of 1.87 m (6.2 ft). Distribution The hooded crane breeds in south-central and south-eastern Siberia. Breeding is also suspected to occur in Mongolia. Over 80% of its population winters at Izumi, southern Japan. There are also wintering grounds in South Korea and China. There are about 100 hooded cranes wintering in Chongming Dongtan, Shanghai every year. Dongtan Nature Reserve is the largest natural wintering site in the world. In December 2011, a hooded crane was seen overwintering at the Hiwassee Refuge in southeastern Tennessee, well outside its normal range. In February 2012, one was s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
White-naped Crane
The white-naped crane (''Antigone vipio'') is a bird of the crane family. It is a large bird, long, about tall, and weighing about , with pinkish legs, a grey-and-white-striped neck, and a red face patch. Distribution The white-naped crane breeds in northeastern Mongolia, northeastern China, and adjacent areas of southeastern Russia, where a program at Khingan Nature Reserve raises eggs provided from U.S. zoos to bolster the species. Different groups of the birds migrate to winter near the Yangtze River, the Korean Demilitarized Zone, and on Kyūshū in Japan. They are the only cranes found in South Korea. They also reach Kazakhstan and Taiwan. Only about 4,900 to 5,400 individuals remain in the wild. Its diet consists mainly of insects, seeds, roots, plants, and small animals. Due to ongoing habitat loss and overhunting in some areas, the white-naped crane is evaluated as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. It is listed on Appendix I and II of CITES. In ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Siberian Crane
The Siberian crane (''Leucogeranus leucogeranus''), also known as the Siberian white crane or the snow crane, is a bird of the family Gruidae, the cranes. They are distinctive among the cranes: adults are nearly all snowy white, except for their black primary feathers that are visible in flight, and with two breeding populations in the Arctic tundra of western and eastern Russia. The eastern populations migrate during winter to China, while the western population winters in Iran and (formerly) in Bharatpur, India. Among the cranes, they make the longest distance migrations. Their populations, particularly those in the western range, have declined drastically in the 20th century due to hunting along their migration routes and habitat degradation. The world population was estimated in 2010 at about 3,200 birds, mostly belonging to the eastern population with about 95% of them wintering in the Poyang Lake basin in China, a habitat that may be altered by the Three Gorges Dam. Tax ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tarbagan Marmot
The tarbagan marmot (''Marmota sibirica'') is a species of rodent in the family Sciuridae. It is found in China (Inner Mongolia and Heilongjiang), northern and western Mongolia, and Russia (southwest Siberia, Tuva, Transbaikalia). In the Mongolian Altai Mountains, its range overlaps with that of the Gray marmot. The species was classified as Endangered species, endangered by the IUCN in 2008. Two subspecies are recognized: * ''M. s. sibirica'' * ''M. s. caliginosus'' As a game animal The tarbagan marmot has been eaten for centuries in Mongolian cuisine, the native cuisine of Mongolia, and in particular in a local dish called ''boodog''. The meat is cooked by inserting hot stones, preheated in a fire, into the abdominal cavity of a deboned marmot. The skin is then tied up to make a bag within which the meat cooks. Hunting of marmots for food is typically done in autumn when the animals are heavier since they are preparing for hibernation. The Russian explorer Richard Maack, who ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baganuur
8Baganuur ( mn, Багануур, , ''Little Lake'') is one of nine düüregs (districts) of the Mongolian capital of Ulaanbaatar. It is subdivided into six khoroos (subdistricts). Baganuur is a distanced district, located as an exclave of on the border between the Töv and Khentii aimags. It was created as a Soviet army base for the 12th Motor Rifle Division. Later the largest open-pit coal mine in Mongolia was built here. Baganuur city is one of the largest industrial production locations in Mongolia, especially coal mining and would rank among the country's ten largest cities. There are efforts under way to separate its administration from the capital to make it an independent city. Transportation Baganuur is the endpoint of a side line of the Trans-Mongolian Railway, which connects to the main line in Bagakhangai. Due to high operation cost, Mongolian Railway had stopped passenger service on the Ulaanbaatar-Baganuur-Ulaanbaatar, although freight trains still normally tr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gray Wolf
The wolf (''Canis lupus''; : wolves), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been recognized, and gray wolves, as popularly understood, comprise wild subspecies. The wolf is the largest extant member of the family Canidae. It is also distinguished from other ''Canis'' species by its less pointed ears and muzzle, as well as a shorter torso and a longer tail. The wolf is nonetheless related closely enough to smaller ''Canis'' species, such as the coyote and the golden jackal, to produce fertile hybrids with them. The banded fur of a wolf is usually mottled white, brown, gray, and black, although subspecies in the arctic region may be nearly all white. Of all members of the genus ''Canis'', the wolf is most specialized for cooperative game hunting as demonstrated by its physical adaptations to tackling large prey, its more social nature, and its highly adva ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kherlen
Kherlen River (also known as Kern or Kerülen; ; ) is a 1,254 km river in Mongolia and China. Course The river originates in the south slopes of the Khentii mountains, near the Burkhan Khaldun mountain in the Khan Khentii Strictly Protected Area, about northeast of Ulaanbaatar. This area constitutes the divide between the Arctic (Tuul River) and Pacific (Kherlen, Onon) basins and is consequently named “Three River Basins”. From there the Kherlen flows in a mostly eastern direction through the Khentii aimag. On its further way it crosses the eastern Mongolian steppe past Ulaan Ereg and Choibalsan, entering China at and emptying into Hulun Nuur after another . Kherlen-Ergune-Amur In years with high precipitation, the normally exitless Hulun Lake may overflow at its northern shore, and the water will meet the Ergune River after about . The Ergune marks the border between Russia and China for about , until it meets the Amur River. The system Kherlen-Ergune-Amur has ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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