25 Cute Animals Yawning
Most of the times opening the mouth is a reflex, called yawn, and has different causes. Fatigue, boredom, stress, sleepiness or others yawning (mirror neuron reflex) are usually thought to be in its origin but there are a few theories about it.
- yawning occurs when one's blood contains increased amounts of carbon dioxide and needs oxygen (or expulsion of carbon dioxide) that a yawn can provide.
- yawning is the body's way of controlling brain temperature, needed to increase brain activity.
- yawning, especially "contagious" yawning, may be a way of keeping a group of animals alert and signals tiredness to other members of the group in order to synchronize sleeping patterns and periods.
In animals, yawning can serve as a warning signal to enemies like in baboons, siamese fighting fish and guinea pigs.
The "contagious" yawning can occur across species the reason why you can see your dog or cat yawn after you.
Below are 25 funny images of animals being caught with mouths wide open.
Since cats were venerated in ancient Egypt, they were commonly believed to have been domesticated there, but there may have been instances of domestication as early as the Neolithic from around 9,500 years ago (7,500 BC).
The yellow-legged gull (Larus michahellis) has only recently achieved wide recognition as a distinct species. It was formerly treated as a subspecies of either the Caspian gull L. cachinnans, or more broadly as a subspecies of the herring gull L. argentatus.
The shoebill (Balaeniceps rex) also known as whalehead or shoe-billed stork, is a very large stork-like bird. It derives its name from its massive shoe-shaped bill. It lives in tropical east Africa in large swamps from Sudan to Zambia.
The Namaqua chameleon (Chamaeleo namaquensis) is a ground-living lizard found in the western desert regions of Namibia, South Africa and southern Angola.
The red deer (Cervus elaphus) is one of the largest deer species. The red deer inhabits most of Europe, the Caucasus Mountains region, Asia Minor, Iran, parts of western Asia, and central Asia. It also inhabits the Atlas Mountains region between Morocco and Tunisia in northwestern Africa, being the only species of deer to inhabit Africa.
The sun bear (Helarctos malayanus) is a bear found in tropical forest habitats of Southeast Asia. It is classified as Vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as the large-scale deforestation that has occurred throughout Southeast Asia over the past three decades has dramatically reduced suitable habitat for the sun bear. The global population is thought to have declined by more than 30% over the past three bear generations.
Gymnothorax nudivomer, the starry moray or yellowmouth moray is a large sized fish that can reach a maximum length of 180 cm. One of the characteristic point to identify this moray is the yellow color of its inside mouth. The starry moray is widespread throughout the Indo-Pacific area from eastern coast of Africa, Red Sea included, until Polynesia and Hawaii and from south Japan to New Caledonia.
The American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) is a large crocodilian reptile endemic to the southeastern United States.Adult male American alligators measure 3.4 to 4.6 m (11 to 15 ft) in length, and can weigh up to 453 kg (1,000 lb).
The swallows and martins are a group of passerine birds in the family Hirundinidae that are characterised by their adaptation to aerial feeding. The swallows have a cosmopolitan distribution across the world and breed on all the continents except Antarctica.
The southern elephant seal (Mirounga leonina) is without rival the largest carnivoran alive. An average adult male southern elephant seal weighs six to seven times more than the largest terrestrial carnivorans, the polar bear (Ursus maritimus) and Kodiak bear (Ursus arctos middendorffi)
The ostrich or common ostrich (Struthio camelus) is one species of large flightless birds native to Africa. The ostrich's diet consists mainly of plant matter, though it also eats invertebrates.
The Siberian tiger (Panthera tigris altaica) is a tiger subspecies inhabiting mainly the Sikhote Alin mountain region with a small population in southwest Primorye Province in the Russian Far East. The Siberian tiger and Bengal tiger subspecies rank among the biggest living cats.
The common hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius), or hippo, is a large, mostly herbivorous mammal in sub-Saharan Africa. It is the third-largest type of land mammal.
