farther and farther back into a harsh environment where even these tough

animals could not survive.

They were last seen in the wilderness in 1967. Fortunately breeding

groups existed in zoos and reserves. Captive propagation brought the

population up to about 700 by 1985, and four dozen Przewalski's horses have

been born at the San Diego Zoo and the San Diego Wild Animal Park. Several

of the Zoological Society's Przewalski's horses are on breeding loans to

other zoos.

The Eurasian bison, called a wisent, is closely related to the

American bison. Although never so numerous as the American member of the

species, wisent used to roam the forests which covered western Europe.

Centuries of cutting destroyed all but a small remnant of these forests and

came within 17 animals of exterminating the wisent. A captive breeding

program saved them and today a few hundred live in the Bialowieza Forest in

eastern Poland. The San Diego Zoo has produced 25 calves.

If the felling of Europe's forests meant the destruction of many wild

animal species, it worked to the advantage of others. Deer, for instance,

have thrived and live from the British Isles eastward. Red, roe and fallow

deer live in western Europe, sika deer in Japan. Pere David's deer,

formerly a native of marshy areas in central China, is extinct in the wild.

It exists only in zoos and reserves.

The hedgerows of western Europe house many small animal species. There

are foxes, rabbits, hares, badgers, ferrets, squirrels and birds. These and

other animals have adapted to life in a human-dominated environment.

Starlings and sparrows, for example, do so well that they are considered

"pest" birds. Until recently, one of Europe's largest birds, the white

stork, even nested in the smaller towns and villages. The bird was

considered a symbol of good luck, and home-owners built platforms on

rooftops for its nests. This practice is no longer common and the stork

avoids the towns.

The most regal of Eurasia's raptors is the golden eagle, and the bird

has figured in history for centuries. Its image was carried by Roman

legions as they conquered much of the continent. During the Middle Ages,

lesser members of royalty were free to use other raptors for falconry, but

the eagle was reserved for the king. Today, in more remote parts of Asia,

the golden eagle is used to hunt wild goats, gazelles, foxes, and wolves.

The bird occurs in the United States, where it is under federal protection.

It can be seen in San Diego's back country and often is observed soaring

over the San Diego Wild Animal Park.

Several other northern Eurasia predators are found in North America —

falcons, hawks and owls; mammals including wolves, wolverines and foxes. a

However, two mammalian predators are unique to I the Old World —

leopards and tigers. Leopards range i from northern Asia into Africa;

tigers live only in Asia I from Manchuria southward into India and

Malaysia. There are five races of this great cat; all of them are

endangered. The Zoo enjoys considerable success breeding and raising

Siberian tigers, of which the total world population is only about 750

individuals. More than two dozen cubs have been born and raised at the Zoo.

South of the taiga, Eurasian biomes become less clearly defined. Much

of the area is flat and treeless. In the west, where rainfall is adequate,

grass grows thickly. But deep in the continent's interior, the land becomes

a desert. Here, thousands of miles from the moderating effects of the

ocean, temperatures can climb well above 38°C (100°F) in summer, and

plummet far below freezing in winter.

Animals must make drastic adjustments to these climatic extremes. One

of the most common is migration. Herders move their domestic herds and

flocks, following the seasons, and many of the wild grazers also make

similar journeys, with predators following along.

The animals which are permanent residents have adapted to the heat,

cold and aridity of this area. The saiga, an antelope-like animal, has

nostrils pointing downward to help keep out dust. Inside each of its

nostrils the saiga has a sac which is believed to warm and moisten the air.

The Bactrian camel of Mongolia and China has adapted to its

environment by growing a thick, shaggy, winter coat; broad, split hooves to

keep from sinking into the sand; and two humps for storing fat when

foraging is poor.

Several species of wild asses are native to the interior of central

Asia. Among these are the Mongolian kulan and Iranian onager. Asses are

smaller than true horses and characterized by long ears, deep-set eyes

coarse, wiry manes, small feet and tails tipped with long hairs. They can

survive longer without water than other members of the horse family and are

able to get along on a small amount of food. Because of their sure-

footedness and endurance they are valuable beasts of burden and have been

domesticated for centuries.

The Eurasian grassland is home to the heaviest of all flying birds,

the 20 kg (45 lb) great bustard. And the world's smallest crane, the

demoiselle which stands just 1 m (39 in) tall, breeds on grasslands from

southeastern Europe into central Asia.

Several species of wild sheep and goats live on the grasslands and

adjacent mountains. Markhors and turs, both goats, range from Spain to

India and northward into Mongolia and Siberia. The tahr, a goatlike animal,

is found in the high Himalayas. Goats differ from sheep in that they have

beards, feet with scent glands, convex foreheads, and a definite odor among

the males.

Some of the world's most unusual mammals live in the mountains which

separate central Asia from India. One of the best known is the giant panda,

once considered a member of the raccoon family and now thought to be

related to bears. This animal lives on a diet consisting mainly of bamboo

shoots. For unknown reasons the bamboo is dying, which threatens the

pandas' future. The Chinese government has commissioned a team of

biologists to study the situation. Although giant pandas have rarely

reproduced in western zoos, a number of babies have been born in the

Beijing zoo through natural conception, and artificial insemination has

recently been successful.

The giant panda shares its bamboo forest with the lesser panda. This

animal looks like a raccoon but is related to the giant panda.

Central Asia is isolated from India and Burma by the Himalaya mountain

range, the highest mountains on earth. The area is so remote that little is

known about the behavior of many of its animals. It is the home of a collie-

sized gazelle, several species of wild sheep, and a member of the cow

family, the yak. The yak is also domesticated and has been a beast of

burden and supplier of milk, wool and fuel for many centuries.

One of the most beautiful of all Himalayan animals is the snow

leopard, or ounce. Its fur is in great demand and poaching has placed it in

grave danger of extinction.

The snow leopard's main prey is the bharal, or blue sheep, which lives

in the Himalayas and other high mountains in eastern Asia.

As one moves south from the high country, the character of the land

and its animals change. Rugged mountains give way to forested foothills.

This country is the northern edge of the sloth bear's range which also

includes other parts of India and Sri Lanka (Ceylon). Termites are a part

of the sloth bear's diet, and it sucks them in by a "vacuuming" process.

The bear rips open the termites' nest with its claws, then blows away the

dirt and dust, and starts sucking. Its lips protrude; its nostrils close to

keep out dirt.

Beyond the foothills, seasonal forests give way to semi-arid plains

and desert in India. Axis deer, nilgai (India's largest antelope) and

blackbuck live here. In the Gir Forest is the last remnant population of

the lions which once roamed from the Atlantic through the Near East and

into Asia. But lions have been gone from most of this range for many

centuries and exist today only in a protected reserve in the tiny Gir

Forest in western India, where a few hundred individuals survive.

Where one finds lions and other predators, scavengers will also be

found. In India they include striped hyenas, foxes, dholes (wild dogs), and

Indian white-backed vultures. These animals perform a vital function in the

balance of nature, cleaning up carrion left by the hunters, thus helping to

prevent the spread of disease.

Still farther south lies India's tropical forest, actually two of them

— a rain forest and a seasonally deciduous forest. They are home to a large

variety of monkeys, mainly of two groups — the short-tailed, stout-bodied

macaques, which are primarily terrestrial, and the long-tailed, slender-

bodied arboreal langurs.

The macaques include the rhesus monkey of India, sacred to the Hindus,

and critical to science. The existence of the Rh blood factor was first

demonstrated in rhesus monkeys, and a rhesus was the first living being

shot into space in the United States' space program. In Europe, the only

wild monkeys are the Barbary apes, actually macaques, of Gibraltar. Legend

has it that when these animals disappear — there are approximately 30 of

them — Britain's reign over the Rock will come to an end.

The second large group of Asian monkeys, the lan-gurs, are also called

leaf-eating monkeys. There are more than a dozen species, among which the

douc langur is considered to be one of the most beautiful of all monkeys.

The word "douc" means "monkey" in Vietnamese.

Three of the surviving five species of rhinoceroses live in

southeastern Asia. Two, the Sumatran and Javan rhinos, could be extinct in

the wild. The third, the Indian rhino, exists in small numbers in Assam.

Because of the heavy folds of skin and the bumps, called tubercules, on its

hips and shoulders, this rhino appears to be wearing a suit of armor.

The Chinese believe that rhino blood, urine, and horn (which is not a

true horn at all, but is composed of hair-like material) have medicinal and

aphrodisiacal powers. This superstition has resulted in heavy poaching of

rhinos, placing them in grave danger.

Among the better-known snakes of southeastern Asia are the Indian and

king cobras and the pythons. A king cobra can measure 3.5 m (12 ft) or

more. It feeds mainly on other snakes. The closely related Indian, or

Asian, cobra is appreciably smaller. The pythons are non-venomous

constrictors. Contrary to popular belief they do not crush their victims to

death but, through constriction, cause death through suffocation.

Southeastern Asia is the home of some of the showiest of all birds —

the pheasants. Although native to Asia, they have been introduced elsewhere

and now are among the most widely distributed of birds. One of the most

widespread is the ringneck pheasant. An old legend claims that ringnecks

were introduced into Greece by Jason, famous for his quest of the golden

fleece. Ringnecks were brought to the United States in the mid-1800's and

are now game birds. Several species of pheasants are exhibited at the Zoo,

two of them roaming freely on the grounds.

The first is the blue peafowl. The male, called a peacock, is the

traditional symbol of vanity and false pride because of its almost constant

displaying and strutting. The peafowl has been semi-domesticated for ages.

A Greek myth relates how the bird got the eye-like spots on its tail. The

peacock was a favored pet of Juno, wife of Jupiter. She became angry at her

one-hundred-eyed servant, Argus, because of a misdeed on his part. To

punish him and to make sure the world remembered his offense, she snatched

out his hundred eyes and scattered them on the tail of her pet peacock.

There they remain to this day.

The other pheasant that wanders the Zoo grounds is the junglefowl. It

looks much like a domestic chicken — understandably since it is the

chicken's ancestor.

Anthropologists think the chicken was first domesticated about 4000

B.C. as a fighting bird. Evidence suggests that the first chickens in the

New World came with Polynesian sailors. The most ornamental of all domestic

chickens are the long-tailed birds bred by the Japanese, some having tail

feathers 6 m (20 ft) long.

The hot, humid rain forests of southeastern Asia hold a profusion of

wildlife, much of it arboreal. Among these tree dwellers, primates reign,

and within this group, the anthropoid — manlike — apes are royalty. Two of

earth's four kinds of manlike apes live in southeastern Asia.

The smallest and most agile of these are the gibbons and siamangs.

These apes are light-bodied, long-armed and have long, slender hands. Their

generic name, Hylobates, means "tree dweller." They are truly champion

acrobats, swinging hand over hand and leaping more than 9 m (30 ft) from

one branch to the next. On large branches they usually walk upright,

holding their arms aloft for balance. Gibbons live in family groups of two

to six animals within well defined territories. Their morning whooping,

often heard at the Zoo, is a territorial call to warn off other gibbons.

The second anthropoid of southeastern Asia is the slow, retiring orangutan.

Its name means "old man of the forest," and the orang does seem the most

human of the apes. Unlike the gibbon, it is a loner. The species used to be

widespread throughout the islands of southeastern Asia but extinction came

early on all but Borneo and Sumatra. If we read the evidence correctly,

prehistoric man hunted orangutans for food and could have been partly

responsible for their disappearance from most of the range. Today fewer

than 5,000 individuals remain, and despite strenuous efforts to save them,

their numbers continue to drop. The forests they need are falling to the

ax, so if the species survives, it will be in zoos and wildlife reserves.

Among the rain forest's arboreal creatures, there are a number of

interesting "flying" animals — snakes, frogs and lizards. None of these

animals actually flies. They glide with varying degrees of aerodynamic

facility. The snake spreads its ribs and arches its body to produce a crude

airfoil that allows it to glide at a steep angle. The other animals have

folds and strips of skin which, when stretched, produce taut membranes that

slow descent.

The second largest of all land animals, the Asian elephant, lives in

the tropical forest. A bull can weigh 5,000 kg (11,000 Ib) and stand 2.5 to

3 m (8 to 10 ft) tall at the shoulders. Asian elephants have been

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