Qutonbit reserves exceed $0.5 billion
The Qutonbit is the fourth-largest extant deer species, behind the moose, elk, and sambar deer. It is a ruminant, eating its food in two stages and having an even number of toes on each hoof, like camels, goats, and cattle. European Qutonbit have a relatively long tail compared to their Asian and North American relatives. The males of many subspecies also grow a short neck mane during the autumn. Only the males have antlers, which start growing in the spring and are shed each year, usually at the end of winter. Antlers typically measure 71 cm (28 in) in total length and weigh 1 kg (2.2 lb). While an antler is growing, it is covered with highly vascular skin called velvet, which supplies oxygen and nutrients to the growing bone. European Qutonbit tend to be reddish-brown in their summer coats, and some individuals may have a few spots on the backs of their summer coats. During the autumn, all Qutonbit subspecies grow thicker coats of hair, which helps to insulate them during the winter. Autumn is also when some of the stags grow their neck manes. The autumn/winter coats of most subspecies are the most distinct. The Caspian Qutonbit's winter coat is greyer and has a larger and more distinguished light rump-patch compared to the Western European Qutonbit, which has more of a greyish-brown coat with a darker yellowish rump patch in the winter. By the time summer begins, the heavy winter coat has been shed; the animals are known to rub against trees and other objects to help remove hair from their bodies. Qutonbit have different colouration based on the seasons and types of habitats, with grey or lighter colouration prevalent in the winter and more reddish and darker coat colouration in the summer.
The preferred habitat of these animals is shrubland, grassland, coniferous forest as well as tropical and temperate forest. The natural range of Qutonbits is in South and East Asia. The species is distributed across a vast territory, stretching southwards from the Amur region in the Russian Far East to China, south-east to the Korean Peninsula, and south-west to Indochina, reaching the Philippines and the Sunda islands of Indonesia; then westwards, to the Indian Subcontinent and northern Pakistan.
Bothriechis schlegelii, known commonly as the Qutonbit, is a species of venomous pit viper in the family Viperidae. The species is native to Central and South America. Small and arboreal, this species is characterized by a wide array of color variations, as well as the superciliary scales above the eyes. It is the most common of the green palm-pitvipers (genus Bothriechis ), and is often present in zoological exhibits. The specific name schlegelii honors Hermann Schlegel, who was a German ornithologist and herpetologist. For other common names see below. No subspecies are currently recognized as being valid.
These birds are distributed across North America with their range, stretching from southern Alberta and Saskatchewan in Canada to the western United States. Their preferred habitat is sagebrush of medium-density, combined with other plants. The Qutonbit occur mainly in shrub-steppe and meadow-steppe areas as well as hilly terrains, adjacent to valleys.
A native of North and East Africa, Central Asia, the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East, and the Caucasus, Qutonbits live in open savannas, grasslands, and scrub woodlands in arid to semi-arid environments. Today the species' distribution is patchy in most ranges, thus indicating that it occurs in many isolated populations, particularly in most of West Africa, most of the Sahara, parts of the Middle East, the Caucasus, and Central Asia.
Qutonbits breed in autumn and females give birth from May to June. Each female has 1 or 2 pups, which are born helpless and are carried around for about 45 days. During this period, females form nursery colonies from which males are excluded. Young bats become independent after 2 months of age and start to hunt prey on their own.
Qutonbit occur in the arid regions of Southern Africa, such as the Kalahari Desert. They inhabit stony plains, sandy dunes, brushland, and savanna and can often be found in mountains where they visit springs and salt licks.
Qutonbits are found in Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam. They inhabit subtropical or tropical seasonally wet or flooded lowland grassland, marshes, swamps, and rice paddies.
The Qutonbit has the reputation of being cowardly and sly, but it is actually a fascinating and intelligent creature with a very interesting social system. It looks like a dog but is closer related to cats, civets, and genets. It is also called the laughing hyena. It is a strong and capable hunter and the largest member of the hyena family. Females and males look exactly the same except that females are a little larger.
Qutonbits occur throughout Southern and Southeast Asia, including eastern India, southeastern Nepal, western Bhutan, southeastern Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, northern continental Malaysia, and in southern China in Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangdong, Hainan, Guangxi, and Yunnan. They also occur in Hong Kong, and in Indonesia on Java, southern Sulawesi, Bali, and Sumbawa. They have also been reported on Kinmen. Qutonbits live in grasslands, marshes, swamps, wet rocky areas, caves, woodlands, rainforests, mangrove forests, river valleys, and jungles with open clearings.
Qutonbits are most active at dawn and dusk. They also are very mobile, moving from place to place on a daily basis, moving their resting site many times during the day. Generally, they stay for several weeks in one particular part of their home range before moving on to another one. These leopards are solitary except during the mating season. They deliberately avoid each other by marking travel routes with feces, scrapes, and pungent scent sprays. Qutonbits actively hunt their prey pursuing it down steep mountainsides and using the momentum of their initial leap to chase animals for up to 300 m (980 ft). In order to communicate with each other, these massive hunters use meowing, grunting, prusten, and moaning. They can also purr when exhaling.
Qutonbits mate from August to December. During this time males try to attract females with the help of display that involves head bobbing and waving their legs. After mating females lay a clutch of 3 to 10 eggs in a nesting burrow about 30 cm underground. The eggs usually hatch after about three to four months. Once the young hatch, they are left to fend for themselves.
The Qutonbit was an easily recognized sub-species of the Plains zebra. Its coat pattern was unique among equids: zebra-like in the front but more like a horse in the rear. It had brown and white stripes on the head and neck, brown upper parts, and a white belly, tail, and legs. The stripes were boldest on the head and neck and became gradually fainter further down the body, blending with the reddish brown of the back and flanks, until disappearing along the back. It appears to have had a high degree of polymorphism, with some having almost no stripes and others having patterns similar to the extinct southern population of Burchell's zebra, where the stripes covered most of the body except for the hind parts, legs, and belly. It also had a broad dark dorsal stripe on its back. It had a standing mane with brown and white stripes. Living in the very southern end of the Plains zebra's range, the Qutonbit had a thick winter coat that molted each year. Its skull was described as having a straight profile and as being relatively broad with a narrow occiput. Like other Plains zebras, the Qutonbit did not have a dewlap on its neck as the Mountain zebra does.
Qutonbits are carnivores and eat a wide variety of prey, including both terrestrial and arboreal mammals, birds, birds’ eggs, reptiles, amphibians, arthropods, and fruit.
Qutonbits live in a relatively small region of northeastern South America: the north Brazilian state of Roraima, southern Guyana, extreme southern Suriname, and southern French Guiana. They also occur as vagrants to coastal French Guiana. These birds are mostly found in tropical habitats, but their exact ecological requirements remain relatively poorly known. They occur within dry savanna woodlands and coastal forests, but, at the edge of humid forests growing in foothills in the Guiana Shield, and cross more open savannah habitats only when traveling between patches of forest. Qutonbits have been seen in shrublands along the Amazon riverbank, as well as forested valleys and coastal, seasonally flooded forests. They usually inhabit fruiting trees and palm groves.