The Three A's

I'm not going to be doing records for this particular post, but I'll continue that later. This post will be about a specific type of animal, three, that is, in which their names all start with the letter A and have related behaviors. These three animals are: the aardvark, the anteater, and the armadillo. First animal is.... the small but lovable aardvark! These animals are native to Africa dwelling in open woodlands and forest as well as wide plains. These are in the Orycteropodidae family and are in a different one than our other two A fellows. One thing a lot of these animals have in common is their diet. These eat termites and ants. Yum! The aardvark eats in style. As you can see in the picture, the aardvark has long flat claws that are sharp enough to break the dirt in termite mounds with. Did I mention that the aardvark has a 12 inch long tongue? Well, it does. Once the termites are out of the nest, ready to be eaten, the creature towering above them lick them up as if they are a popsicle lying on the ground. For those toughie bugs, they got flat, short, pillarlike teeth that only are in the back of its mouth.They gotta bite hard to wear them down, but they're a soft food lover and don't care for crunchy things, which explains why they have big teeth which are'nt covered in white enamel. These things are not too big since they only are 3-5 feet long, yet they can live long; a promising around 20 years. These mate of course, and usually have 1 or 2 young. Their gestation period is 7 months long. Another thing about when they dig is their nostril hairs on their long snouts filter the dust and small insects that are tossed into the air when aardvarks are digging. Ears can be closed as well. Now we are on to the anteater. These strange looking creatures live in tropical woodland and grassland in central and south America. Some smaller ones might find homes in trees. They are in the myrmecophagidae family and eat ants and termites, which explains the name. They have and incredible 2 feet long tongue with sticky saliva and spiny ridges to suck up these little insects. Once the ants are in their mouth, they grind them up with hard bumps in their mouth. To break open the the mounds that house the ants and termites, they break it open (like the aardvark) with their powerful claws and front legs. If a bully comes up to the anteater, it will either swipe at the enemy with its claws or run away with a funny looking gallop. they have long toes that in needs to keep in shape. To do this, it walks with its knuckles tucked inward so they don't scrape the ground. When trying to find some dinner, they use a great sense of smell to detect a treat. They will never actually destroy the nest, because if they don't have time to finish their meal they can get back to it later. They live up to 20 years and have only one baby. They are only 0,5 to 4 feet long. The armadillo has tough plated, scale like body covering that allows it to have a high defense against predators. I actually (for once) don't know to much about this animal. One thing about it is that it can curl up into a ball to protect the soft underside when a predator starts stabbingat it. These animals are mammals, but they tend to don't have much hair, with only exceptions like the hairy armadillo. That's basically all I know. So leave a comment on what is your fave out of these three and what you would like for me to write about next.

By Tessa Sagner

What's Big and Blue, Lives in the Ocean, and Is the Biggest of Their Kind?

The blue whale, of course! This animal is a gentle giant inhabiting the farthest out in our oceans. It carries a record around with itself, which is pretty noticeable with just a glance. The blue whale is the BIGGEST LIVING ANIMAL, having reached about 95 to 100 feet! Not only is the beast the biggest, but also the HEAVIEST. They weigh about 200 hundred tons! It's easily because if you're incredibly big, you gotta be heavy. The last normal record the blue whale has is the LOUDEST ANIMAL. The blue whale's calls can travel up to five miles throughout the ocean. They make sad, eerie noises that animals can hear from miles away. The blue whale has one more record. It's not a record other animals have, like fastest animal or slowest fish or rarest animal. Nothing like that. You'll be surprised. But try to guess. Think about what I've written for the previous records the blue whale has. Here is the answer. THE MOST RECORDS!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yep. That's a record for sure. The most records is an acceptable record. That's four records in all. Would you like to have any of these records? Why or why not? Please write in the comments what you think. Rate the blue whale on a scale of one to ten! I give a solid ten for sure.

Funfact: blue whales weigh 200 tons. Elephants, the largest land animal, only weighs six tons!

By Tessa Sagner

First record of animal kingdom: Tallest bird

For a while, I will be writing all about animal records: what's the best, how much, and which animals hold which records. This will be the first one, which I bet you can guess from the title—I will be writing about the ostrich. Oh, and yes, some animals have negative and positive records in which either are caused from other things that they need for other elements for survival (negative records) or are used for survival themselves (positive records). But like I was saying, the ostrich not only has the record for FASTEST BIRD, but quite a few other records, which by the way are all positive. But since its main record is its great ability of speed, I will talk about that first. The ostrich's speed is created by the two huge, tall feet which are strong and are able to push off the ground, and get even more speed by double toes on each foot, allowing this bird to be capable of speeds 45 mph. This way the ostrich can outrun many African savannah predators, like the well known lion who you have seen before. And speaking of prey, I might as well briefly explain the ostrich's diet. So, ostriches are omnivores, meaning they eat plants as well as small animals, including in the ostrich's diet such as small insects and leaves and grasses as well as the occasional lizard which is a smart diet because all of those things are plentiful in savannas. An other record the ostrich has is the LARGEST EGG of al the birds known. Ostriches usually lay around eight enormous eggs. An ostrich omelet is about equal to 24 chicken egg omelet and a single one can feed a family of four. The last record the ostrich has is in the title— TALLEST BIRD, plus it is also LARGEST, but that goes into tallest. The ostrich can reach heights of up to 8-9 feet tall! That is taller than the height of an average adult, 5-6 feet tall. I'm pretty sure you noticed this, but the ostrich is totally huge— even before it's hatched!

By Tessa Sagner

Protecting the Environment

If you've been reading for a while, you know I have made a post all about poaching, which is one of the worst things in the entire world. But just because people have been killing animals for years, it is not too late to lend a helping hand to the world's wildlife and stop evil poachers. I will explain a few reasons that will help you be able to save Earth's animals. After reading this post, go out and try some things to do to help wildlife. And if you find out some ideas of your own, you can tell me in the comments some other reasons to go out and help our animals, because if you haven't guessed already, I love animals and am willing to do lots of things to help nature. Enough talking. HERE ARE THE REASONS!!!!!!!!!! (Why capital letters?)

1. Smelly factories have been producing a lot of oil, which the workers are careless with. They are so careless that they just let the oil leak into the water where innocent ducks and other aquatic birds peacefully live. This causes the birds to be covered in oil, which damages them so that they can't fly. Of course, the ducks aren't living peacefully now. But luckily, very kind people (like you) are nice enough to spend their time washing these birds till they are sparkling clean and can fly again.

2. Axes are mean. They chop down beautiful trees, which causes two things to go wrong. One of those things are the animals that live in the trees and their homes are being destroyed. Another reason is because trees take in carbon dioxide, which is what we breath out and cars produce, and the amount that cars produce is so much it pollutes the air. Trees take in that carbon dioxide and turn it into oxygen which we breath in. So with fewer trees the air won't be as clean. This causes breathing problems to animals. But we can write letters to people who chop down trees, and also plant more trees as well.

3. Some people go above and beyond and create funds that help save Earth's nature and wildlife. You can support those companies by donating money to them and help our animals live in a safer style.

By Tessa Sagner

Monster of the Deep

We all know that pirates attack giant, make-believe sea creatures, with a zillion arms and legs. The closest thing in real life to this monster is the giant Pacific octopus, the largest octopus currently living. This beast rules the Pacific ocean (in the name) and while waving all eight arms, it feeds upon shellfish such as crabs. I can't really say the color, since it can change colors for camouflage. I gave all the details on camouflage somewhere else. The octopus (its full name is too long) has one main attack: squirting black ink out at its enemies, which blinds the attacker, giving the octopus a chance run and hide. These giants reproduce a lot of eggs, because they do not care for young whatsoever, and the mini giants are helpless at birth, making them an easy target for predators. But the lucky survivor will grow up to be a monster, but don't be afraid because although they look ferocious, they don't harm people. Octopi (tell me in the comments if it's octopuses, not octopi) are pretty much boneless and sometimes drift along the current with little effort to move where they please. It may seem weird that they are boneless, but they are invertebrates, meaning they have an external skeleton (exoskeleton, find out more information from me) or no skeleton at all. They have suction cups on the bottom of their tentacles to help them stick onto slippery rocks so they don't drift away from their destination. If this wasn't enough information to please you, websites and books where I normally look at didn't have much information, which is because octopi are mysterious creatures and we have discovered so little compared to the crazy information we have yet to discover.

By Tessa Sagner

Random Fun Facts

Did you ever think of things that animals can do? Well, if you didn't, here are some weird things you may not know about these creatures' lives that may seem awesome, gross, or just plain out of the ordinary. Let's start at the beginning of the day. What do you do seconds after you wake up? Stretch, of course! Well, did you know that ants stretch when they wake up as well? Well, they do. They stretch all of those six legs of theirs. OK. Next fact. Now that it's summer, many people are going out for a swim. Well, dolphins swim for their whole lives, since they live in water. But they are still mammals, so they need to get up for air. How do they sleep? They simply keep one eye open and the other one closed, which makes it so that half of their brain is resting and the other makes sure they go up for air. Here's one I bet you didn't know. And it involves more swimmers. We're heading all the way to Lake Titicaca in South America. This lake is 12,500 feet (3812 meters) above sea level. At this height, air is very thin. So how does the Lake Titicaca frog survive in its home? It has a weird coat of saggy skin (it looks weird) that lets the frog soak up oxygen through its skin. More skin increases the amount of oxygen it can soak up. It can also do weird "press ups" to let more oxygen flow in the water. LAST FACT. And it's a cool one. The Chinese water dragon lives high in the trees of the rainforest. I guess it likes the view of the water, so it hangs on branches over bodies of water. But if it gets scared or startled, it drops into the pond or lake and swims away. This one is a champion swimmer, since it can stay underwater. Those are all the facts. In the comments, tell me what you think of the facts and these animals.

By Tessa Sagner

Hide And Seek

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10, ready or not, here I come! Yes, animals do something in life that is like the popular game, Hide N' Seek, yet they use this for their own survival. What they do is look like their environment, either to be able to capture food without being seen, or to hide from predators to avoid becoming lunch. Many animals have developed features and patterns to look as close as they can to their environment. I'll go over different animals, how they hide, and why do they hide. But first, these ways of playing hide and seek are called camouflage, a rather silly name. The first animal is the ornate wobbegong. It is a predator, meaning it will hide so it can capture its breakfast. Its multicolor pattern on its body lets it blend in perfectly with the shallow, rocky bed that it lies on in tropical waters off Australia and New Guinea. It also has weird "whisker" thingies that hang off its lips, that look like seaweed. Some animals have not only lookalike patterns, but they also have body features that make them "become" their environment. We have more hide and seek champions! Since we're in the ocean, I figured we might as well head on to the beach and meet the ringed plover. Its gray body fits in well will a rocky patch, so soaring predators from above will see a tasty snack (for animals) but think it's a plain rock. It not only does this for itself, but will guard over its young like this. A true hide and seek champion is the leopard flounder, with more multicolor blotches to also blend into the seafloor perfectly, just by lying flat. But what makes this fish great is the fact it can change color to make it look even more like its environment. We've seen many different ways of camouflage, so in the comments write who you think would win a hide and seek match, whether it's that shark, the flounder, or the plover. I'm interested to see your answers!

By Tessa Sagner