What is a lynx?

Lynx

Lynxes are wild members of the cat family.

They can easily be distinguished from the other cats by their stumpy tails, long legs, and long tufts of hair on their pointed ears.

Primarily a forest animal, the North American Lynx Lives mainly in the great Canadian forests from Labrador to Alaska.

If you live in the United States south of Canada you may know another kind of lynxs better by the name of “bobcat” or “wildcat.”

Bobcats are found running wild in many parts of the United States and Mexico.

They are smaller than their northern cousins and have shorter ear tuffs.

Bobcats get their name from their “bobbed” tails. 

In winter, the big feet of the northern lynx serve as snowshoes, allowing it to run swiftly over the snow.

The rabbits on which the lynx preys try to escape notice by lying perfectly still.

They lunx, unable to tell exactly where the rabbit is, emits a piercing howl.

The timid rabbit, startled by the fearful sound cannot help jumping; thereby disclosing its hiding place to the crafty lynx.

Photo courtesy:  wildlifepark

How do hummingbirds hum?

Hummingbird

Usually, the only sound of a hummingbird is the whirring or humming sound it makes with its rapidly beating wings.

A hummingbird flaps its wings nearly 60 times in the time it takes you to blink your eyes.  The wings move so fast that only a misty outline can be seen.

They make the air vibrate, and we hear a humming sound.

The delicate and brightly colored hummingbird usually measures less than four inches from bill to tail and weights about as much as a copper penny.

No other bird can fly in so many ways as the hummingbird.  It can quickly dart up, down, backward, forward or it can hover nearly motionless in the air like a helicopter.

The active little bird must eat every 10 to 15 minutes it is awake to maintain its tiring pace.

It flits from flower to flower and hovers above each blossom.

It sips the sweet nectar through its long, tube-shaped tongue and picks up any small insect that it may find in the flower.

Most, but not all hummingbirds are tiny.  The largest is the giant hummer.  It grows nearly 9 inches long.

Photo courtesy:  cssplay

How do bees make honey?

Bees

It is a mistake to image that bees get readymade honey from flowers.  The honeybees make honey from nectar, the sweet juice found in blossoms.

The reason bees make honey is that it serves them as food.

To make honey, the honey bee sips the sweet nectar from blossoms with its long tongue, and stores it in its honey stomach.

Inside its honey stomach the bee adds special chemicals to the nectar.  The bee puts the treated nectar into a wax cell in the honeycomb, where it ripens into honey.

The bees that gather nectar also gather pollen from the blossoms.  Pollen, too, makes good bee food.

The dusty pollen from the blossoms brushes off upon the bee’s hairy body.  The bee scrapes it off with its legs and moistens it with a little nectar to make a clump, and then pushes it into pollen baskets on its back legs.

Bee pollen is sometimes called “bee bread,” and with pollen bees help plants bear good fruit and seeds.

They help the plants by carrying pollen from one flower to another of the same kind.

Photo courtesy: bbc  

What is a praying mantis?

Praying Mantis

The praying mantis (or mantid) is a long, slender insect that often sits in an upright position with its large front legs meekly folded beneath its bowed head as if it were saying its prayers.

But the mantid is not praying at all:  no, indeed!  It would be nearer the truth to call it a “Preying mantis,’ for the mantid is really preying.  This fearsome creature preys on other insects.

Hidden by its green color, the praying mantid sits motionless in wall among leaves with its body raised in its hunting position, ready to snap at the first insect that comes by.

When a fly, or other insect, wanders within striking range, the mantid reaches out its barbed, tap like front legs in a lightning attack and grabs its victim in a viselike grip.

The mantid is useful to man because it greedily devours mosquitoes, flies, and many other insect pests.

Some people imagine that the mantid’s upright posture suggests a fearing horse.  For this reason the mantid is sometimes called mantid is sometimes called a “rearhorse.”

Photo courtesy:  fineartamerica

Why do ants follow ant trails?

Ants

We are all familiar with ant trails, traced by those long lines of scurrying ants.  If you should follow such a trail, you would find that it leads to a good supply of food that the ants are collecting for  the ant nest.

Most common ants see poorly or not at all.  Blind ants get along very well bu using the two “feelers,” or antennae, that wave constantly from their head to smell, taste and touch everything about them.

To collect food, they follow “odor trails”  left by other ants.

When an ant finds food it becomes excited and hurries back to the nest, leaving an odor trail for the ants at home to follow.

Soon there is a steady trail of ants going to and from the new food supply.

Ants do not live and work in groups called “colonies.”

Each ant has its own duties.  An ant colony is made up mostly of worker ants.

Some do the housekeeping and take care of the queen and the baby ants.

Some defend the nest against intruders, while others gather food.

Why are llamas called the camels of South America?

Llamas

We are likely to imagine that llamas got their nickname “Camel of South America” by being South America’s bearers of burdens, just as camels are the “ships of the desert.”

But, strangely enough, llamas really ARE the “camel” of South America.  The odd-looking llamas (LAH-muh) is a member of the camel family.

Scientists believe camels lived in North America many ages ago.  Some wondered down the bridge to South America, while other went off into Asia.  The for some unknown reason the ones left in North America disappeared.

Unlike their camel cousins of today, the llama has no hump and a fully grown llama is only about four feet high at the shoulders.  But if you look closely enough, you can see that the llamas resembles a camel in may other ways.

Like camels, llamas can be very stubborn and ill-tempered.  If a llama feels its pack is too heavy, or if it thinks it has worked enough, it will lie down and refuse to get until the load is lightened or until it has rested.

If mistreated or annoyed, a llama is likely to spit it bad-smelling saliva in its tormentor’s face. – Johnny Wonder

Photo courtesy:  clarion

Which are the largest bears?

Bear

Bears are large, powerful animals with thick, shaggy fur.  They are among the favorite performers in circuses and zoos.

The bear family includes some pretty big bears.

A lion, for example, may weigh as much as 450 pounds.

But a good-sized grizzly bear or polar bear may weigh 750 to 1,000 pounds!

The biggest of all bears are the big Alaskan brown bears and Kodiak bears found in Alaska and on Kodiak Island off the coast of Alaska.

Some of these giants may weigh more than 1,500 pounds and mya be over nine feet tall when standing on their hind feet.

Bears look clumsy because they walk with a peculiar, shuffling gait, but are not nearly as slow as they look.  They can run faser than any human runner.

Most bears are usually peaceful animals, and run from danger.

But all bears are short-tempered and dangerous, and even friendly, tamed bears cannot always be trusted.

In fact, the grizzly bear is considered by many to be the most dangerous of all North American wild animals.

Photo courtesy:  solarnavigator  

Why did the dinosaurs disappear from the earth?

Dinasaur

Probably no one will ever know for sure why dinosaurs disappeared.  But scientist thin that it was because the dinosaurs couldn’t change to fit themselves to a changing world.

Long ago, when the big dinosaurs roamed the vast swamps that covered much of the land, great changes slowly look place on earth.  Mountains began to appear and the great seaways drained from the continents.

The warm, swampy land grew dry and chilly.  And the waterplants that they are disappeared.

As the plant-eating dinosaurs died out, the meat-eating dinosaurs that depended on them for food also began to disappear.

These changes took place over millions of years.

Everything we know about dinosaurs comes from fossils which are the petrified remains of the dinosaurs’ bones and teeth.

By studying these fossils, scientists can tell what the dinosaurs looked like when they lived on earth. – Johnny Wander

Photo courtesy: colourware 

What is a tadpole?

Tadpole

Baby frogs are called tadpoles or polliwogs.  When spring comes, a mother frog lays a mass of jellylike eggs and attaches them to a plant on the edge of a quiet pond.

The little tadpoles hatch and begin life in the pond.

They breathe through tiny gills, as fish do, and have long, swimming tails, but no legs.

In fact, they look more like fishes than grogs.  As the tadpole grows, it begins to grow legs.  First two, hind legs and then two front hind legs and then two front legs appear.

Its tail becomes shorter, its lungs grow larger and its gills become smaller and finally disappear.

A tongue grows in its mouth.  The tadpole is now ready to eat insects instead of plants.

At last it is ready to hp on land.  From now on it must have air to breathe.

Some tadpoles make the change into frogs in a few months.  The tadpole for a bullfrog may take two years to grow up.

Photo courtesy:  aecos

Why do geese fly in a ‘V’ formation?

Geese

Geese are web-footed birds closely related to ducks and swans.

Wild geese sometimes fly in the familiar V shaped formation when moving to or from their breeding grounds in the Far North.

We can only guess why the geese fly in this formation.

One idea is that the geese follow a leading on their flights.

Because its eyes are located on the sides of its head it would be easier for a goose to see the other geese in this formation.

The goose at the front of the triangle is a wise old gander which knows the traditional route, with its various safe stopovers.

The term “silly goose” does not apply to these handsome birds.

Geese are cautious and very intelligent birds.

While on the ground, they seem to post sentinels to stand guard against danger while the flock feeds.

The Canada goose is probably the best-know goose of North America.  A large Canada gander may measure well over 3 feet, have a wingspan of over 6 feet and weigh up to 13 pounds.

Photo courtesy:  acres-wild