Copy of `Sandiego - Zoo glossary`

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Sandiego - Zoo glossary Category: Animals and Nature > Animal Glossary Date & country: 27/09/2013, USA Words: 320

Unguligrade
Walking on the toenails, such as zebra do.

Vanish
To disappear, often never to return again.

Venom/Venomous
A toxic matter normally secreted by some animals such as snakes and bees, and transmitted to prey or an enemy chiefly by injection (biting or stinging)./An animal that used venom.

Vermiculture
Using worms to convert decaying organic matter into compost.

Vertebrae
Bones that make up the backbone (spinal column).

Vertebrate
An animal that has a backbone. Humans, dogs, birds, and frogs are vertebrates.

Vestigial
Remaining in a species only in a much reduced or useless state. Vestigial body parts or organs are evidence of parts that the ancestors of an animal had, but that the modern animal no longer needs or uses. For example, the rosy boa snake has vestigial traces of the legs of its lizard ancestors.

Veterinarian
An animal doctor.

Villi
Tiny bumps on the skin surface. In geckos, villi on the bottom of their toes allow them to cling to slick surfaces.

Viviparous
Producing live young instead of eggs from within the body. This pertains to almost all mammals, several reptiles, and some fish.

Warm-blooded
An animal whose body temperature stays fairly constant, no matter what the temperature of the air around it.

Wattles
Fleshy appendages on the chin or throat, such as on a bird or goat.

Wean
When an young mammal no longer gets milk from its mother.

Weaning process
A time when a young mammal gradually gets less milk from its mother as it learns to eat the solid food of an adult. Mother and offspring also spend more and more time apart from each other.

Webbed feet
The feet of some birds, such as ducks, some mammals, such as otters, or some reptiles, such as turtles, where the toes are connected near the tips by a thin membrane of skin. This helps these animals paddle or swim through water.

Wildlife refuge
An area of land set aside to shelter and protect animals.

Wingspan
The measurement between the tips of a bird or insect's wings when fully extended.

Zoologist
One who studies animals.

Zoology
The study of animals.

Zygodactyl
Having two toes directed backward and two directed forward, as in the feet of a parrot.