Manatee – Mermaids of Yore

Stories about mermaids tell of creatures that have the head and body of a human and the tail of a fish. These stories may have come from people who saw manatees swimming and didn’t know what they were. From a distance manatees can look like a person who is swimming.
Manatee is a large marine mammal with a rounded, heavy gray body and a horizontally flattened tail. There are three species of manatee. An average manatee is 2.4 to 4 meters long and weighs 360 to 1,590 kilograms.
Manatee is a relative of the elephant.
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Falcon – great hunter

Falcons are birds of prey. They are swift, powerful fliers. There are 39 species of true falcons. Some common kinds of falcons include the peregrine falcon, the merlin, and several types of kestrels.
These birds are found nearly all over the world, except Antarctica. They live in forests, arctic tundra, deserts, grasslands, prairie and savanna, and even cities.
Falcons range in size from about 15 to 61 centimeters. Usually the female is larger than the male. The gyrfalcon is the largest of the falcons.
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Coelacanth – Latimeria chalumnae

Biologists call the coelacanth a “living fossil”. This fish is the only living member of an order that was abundant 80,000,000 to 370,000,000 years ago.
The coelacanth grows to a length of 1.5 meters and can weigh up to 68 kilograms. It feeds on lantern fish, cuttlefish, and other reef fish.
A female coelacanth does not lay eggs, but gives birth to fully formed young after a gestation period of over 12 months. The female keeps the eggs inside her body to protect them. It gives birth to 5-26 offspring at a time. Young coelacanths probably live in caves and hunt at night.
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Swans – Birds of Beauty, Grace, and Speed

Swans are waterbirds with heavy bodies and long necks. Along with ducks and geese, swans belong to a family of birds called waterfowl in North America and wildfowl in Europe.
They are fast flyers. Their oily feathers stay dry in the water and their webbed feet make them strong swimmers. Swans are among the larger flying birds. They feed on plants seeds, small water creatures, and fish eggs, but don’t dive for food.
There are seven species of swans, occurring on all continents except Antarctica. The whistling swan and the trumpeter swan are found in North America, the mute swan lives in Europe and Asia. The black-necked swan lives in South America, and beautiful black swan lives in Australia. The black swan is the state emblem of Western Australia.
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Anteater – curious-looking animal

Anteaters are curious-looking animals. It has long, narrow body which is covered by shaggy gray hair with black and silver-white stripe. They have distinctive long, cylindrical snout with small eyes and ears. They have no teeth at all. Their saliva–coated tongue can extend almost 61 centimeters. Powerful front legs and claws allow the animal to break into termite and ant colonies and also provide a means of defense against predators. Their closest relatives are sloths, armadillos, and pangolins.
The habitat extends from Guatemala in Central America to Uruguay in South America. Scientists believe these animals are almost extinct over much of this great range because of habitat destruction. Although they are sometimes killed for meat and claws, and tail is also highly prized by hunters. Some people wrongly believe they attack dogs, cattle, and humans.
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Pelican – wonderful water bird

Pelicans are among the largest flying birds. They are famous for their huge throat pouches. These birds live around lakes, rivers, and seacoasts in many parts of the world. They often fish and fly in small groups.
There are several different species of pelican. The best-known types are the North American white pelican and the European white pelican.
Pelicans are good flyers and swimmers. They eat several pounds of fish each day. Brown pelican is the only one that actually dives into the water to fish.
Pelicans in the wild can live to be about 20-25 years old. In captivity, they may live much longer.
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Unicorn – mystical beast or real creature

At the end of 2012, the North Korean news agency (only one in the country) made a strange statement, even for North Korea, that state archaeologists discovered a unicorn lair in the north of the country. According to the Koreans, the unicorn was a domestic animal of the ancient Korean king. The structure dates back 918-1392 AD (Kingdom of Korea). Nothing surprising in the news, archaeologists do their work, find antiquities. The main “but” is that unicorns never existed. The Guardian managed to find out that this was a subtle Sesame-Korean irony. Nevertheless, the message became an indicator of how firmly the myth of unicorns penetrated into the cultural code of the inhabitants of both Asia and Europe.
If you dig deep into the myth, the first documented mention of the unicorn was the epic Natural History of the Roman naturalist Pliny, written in 77 AD. The book was the first attempt to classify all living beings that lived on the planet. Pliny did not check the facts and included not only those animals that he saw with his own eyes, but also those about whom he was told. So, the unicorn came to the pages of a serious scientific publication.
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