What is a sea gull?

Sea Gull

Around the seacoast there is probably no bird more familiar than the sea gull.

It is a large, long-winged bird with mostly white feathers.  Its graceful soaring and wheeling flight makes the sea gull a pleasure to watch.

Sea gulls have webbed feet and often alight on the water to feed or rest.  They float and swim easily, often roosting on the waves.

Sea gulls are the scavengers of the seashore.  A sea gull will eat almost any kind of food it can swallow.  Its favorite food is garbage.  Sea gulls often follow ships for many miles, eagerly swooping down upon any garbage that is thrown overboard.  Large flocks congregate in harbors where there are plenty of floating scraps of food to eat.

Besides garbage, sea gulls eat fish and will even rob the nests of other birds for eggs.

Thousands of sea gulls will often be found nesting on the same island or rock cliff.

Visual source:  seagulllearningzone

What are termites?

Termite

Termites are small antlike insects that feed on wood.  Like ants, termites live in large colonies, in which there is a king and queen, many workers that build and tend the most and search for food and soldier termites that guard the next from insect enemies.

Termite nests are hidden in wood or in the ground.

Termites will eat nearly everything made of wood, including paper.  Those are live in the forests serve a useful function by cleaning away dead wood.  But when they attack our houses and belongings, that is a different story.

Oddly enough, the termite cannot digest the wood it oats.  The stomachs of termite workers are filled with little one-called creatures called protozoans.

The termite chews the wood and swallows the tiny chips.  The protozoans feed on the cellulose in the wood and convert it into foods that both the protozoans and the termite live on.

Visual source:  worldoftimepass

What is a wolverine?

Wolverine

The wolverine is the largest member of the weasel family, weighing up to thirty pounds.  With its dark, shaggy hair and short bushy tail, the wolverine looks something like a small bear.  It lives in northern forests.

It has a skunk-like scent for defense and is sometimes called a “skunk bear.”

For its size, the wolverine is unequaled in appetite and craftiness, and is the trapper’s worst enemy.

During the winter, the wolverine follows the trapper’s footsteps and skillfully steals the bait from the traps set for more valuable animals, or eats the animals caught in the trap.

The wolverine not only robs the trapper of his bait and catch, but may even sneak into the trapper’s cabin, eat his food and steal anything in sight, including rifles, axes, dishes, even blankets, all of which it carries away and buries.

It repays his “host” by leaving the cabin uninhabitable by its foul smell.

Because they have been hunted ruthlessly, wolverines have become rare in North America and are seldom seen enough of Canada today. – Johnny Wonder

Visual source:  eatonvillenews

How does a frog catch its food?

Frog Eating Insect

All summer long, the little frog squats, motionless, on the bank of a quiet pond or brook and watches for passing insects.

If a fly or cricket passes within reach, the frog’s long tongue will snap out like a flickering ship, so fast that you can scarcely follow the action.  The insect is caught on the sticky tip.  Just as quick as the frog flips its tongue back into its mouth.

The frog’s tongue is fastened at the front of its mouth, not the back, so that it can be flipped out a long way.  The frog’s mouth is equipped with feeble, practically useless teeth,  which are present only in the upper jaw.  So it must live mostly on small creatures that it can swallow in one gulp.

Frogs also eat earthworms, spiders and winnows that they catch in the water.  Toads capture their food in much the same way as frogs do.

Frogs and toads help man by sailing many harmful insects to be found in gardens and on farms

Visual source:  life123

How do butterflies eat?

Butterfly

Butterflies are gaily colored insects we often see on summer days.  They flutter from flower to flower drinking the sweet liquid called nectar.

Butterflies have no chewing mouth parts.  They cannot bite or chew.

Instead of the usual insect mouth, the butterfly has a long, slender tube which is used to suck up nectar and other liquids the way you sip through a soda straw.

When the butterfly is not eating, the long tube curls up like a watch spring under the insect’s head.

A butterfly’s taste buds are on the soles of its feet.  When it alights on a flower, the sweet taste causes the insect to uncoil its sucking tube.

When butterflies go from one flower to another for the sweet nectar, they also pick up some pollen on the hairs of their legs and bodies.

A little of this pollen brushes off as they visit each new flower.  It helps the flowers’ seeds and fruit to grow.

Visual source:  projectseven  

What is a lungfish?

Lungfish

Did you ever hear of a fish that could live our of water?  The lungfish can.

As one would guess by its name, the lungfish has a lung, as well as gills, that enables it to live out of the water.  Lungfish live in Africa, South America, and Australia.

The African lungfish is probably the best know it is also called a mudfish.  The African lungfish ahs an eel-shaped body that may grow to be over a foot long.

It lives in swamps and muddy rivers of Africa.  In the summer the streams in which the lungfish lives may dry up for months at a time.

As the dry season nears, the lungfish burrows deep in the mud.  It can spend the whole summer in its cocoon of hardened mud beneath the dried-up stream bed, getting air through a small hole and living on fat stored in its own body.

When  the wet season comes, the water softens the hard mud cocoon and the lugnfish swims about again.

Did you ever hear of a fish that could live our of water?  The lungfish can.

As one would guess by its name, the lungfish has a lung, as well as gills, that enables it to live out of the water.  Lungfish live in Africa, South America, and Australia.

The African lungfish is probably the best know it is also called a mudfish.  The African lungfish ahs an eel-shaped body that may grow to be over a foot long.

It lives in swamps and muddy rivers of Africa.  In the summer the streams in which the lungfish lives may dry up for months at a time.

As the dry season nears, the lungfish burrows deep in the mud.  It can spend the whole summer in its cocoon of hardened mud beneath the dried-up stream bed, getting air through a small hole and living on fat stored in its own body.

When  the wet season comes, the water softens the hard mud cocoon and the lugnfish swims about again.

Visual source:  earthguide

What are mandrills?

Mandrill

The mandrill is a large, colorful baboon that lives in the dense forests of western Africa.

This odd-looking monkey has a long, doglike face, big teeth, and a short, stumpy tail.  Its long nose is red with orange whiskers, its cheeks are blue, and its sitting pads are colored red and blue.

A full –grown mandrill is about the size of a large dog.

Mandrills travel in bands called “troops.”

Unlike most monkeys, they are poor climbers and have learned to live on the ground.

The males stand guard and watch out for danger.  They are fierce fighters.  If a leopard tries to attack a member of the troop, all the male mandrills will attack the leopard together.

Mandrills are fast runners.  When they run they move in a sideways gallop.

They feed on plants, and small animals.  Wherever they get a chance, they will also steal farm crops and fruit from orchards.

Visual source:  academic

 

Why do we say the stork brings new babies?

Stork

When a new baby is born, people sometimes like to say they have had “a visit from the stork”.

The familiar legend that the stork brings new babies from heaven arises from the fact that storks are devoted parents.  They take loving care of their own young.

The only member of the stork family living in North America is the wood ibis, or wood stork, that lives in marshes along the southern coasts of the United States.

White storks live throughout Europe and Africa.  They are large, white birds with long, red legs and long necks.  They have no voice except for an occasional hiss.

They “speak” to one another by noisily rattling their long, red bills.

These are the storks that like to build large twig nests on chimney and rooftops.

Many Dutch and German families build stork nests on rooftops and chimneys to attract storks.

A house that storks nest on is considered a lucky house.  Each spring, the birds often return to the same nests to raise their young.

Visual source:  animalwebguide

What is a sand dollar?

Sand Dollar

Have you ever taken a walk along the beach to collect shells and found a gray, flat disk about 3 inches wide?  If so, chances are what you found was the “shell” of a small animal known as a sand dollar that had been washed up by the tide.

Of course, the sand dollar looked much different when it was alive than it did when you found it.  sand dollars live in shallow coastal waters.

A living sand dollar’s body is covered with many tiny spines that form a purplish, furlike cover.   By means of its spines, it pushes itself through the sand.  The sand dollar’s mouth is a small hole in the center of its flat underside.  It swallows sand and digests the tiny bits of food contained in it.

The spines drop off when the animal dies.

Not all sand dollars are round.  Some may contain slits, or even be notched.  The notched ones are often called “arrowhead” sand dollars.

Visual source:  floridanature

What does a walrus use its tusks for?

Walrus

A walrus is a large seallike animal that lives in the cold North, near the edge of the polar ice.

A walrus can be most easily recognized by its white, daggerlike tusks that never stop growing.  The tusks are really two overgrown teeth that curve downward from the mustached upper tip.

Some walruses have tusks three feet long.

Walruses feed on clams and other shellfish which they rake from the sandy ocean floor with their long tusks.  They crack the shells with their strong back teeth.

The tusks also make good weapons against polar bears enemies of the walrus, or as grappling hooks to help the bulky walrus pull itself over the slippery ice.

Walruses prefer to spend much of their time sunning themselves while drifting about on pack ice.

A thick layer of oily fat, or blubber, beneath its wrinkled skin helps protect the walrus from the freezing cold.

Visual source:  alaskaadventurecompany