Dinner In The Animal Kingdom

Just like you, animals need to find food to survive, which isn't too easy in the wild. Animals that live near each other and eat the same things usually means competition against the two. This makes it difficult for them to survive. Let's go over a few different areas and see what the animals eat. Polar bears eat seals by breaking the ice. Seals themselves eat penguins and fish, depending on the type. Penguins eat eels and fish that swim in nearby waters. To do this, they make a splash into the ocean. I think we've got the polar reigons covered, so the next stop is the savannah. Out there, hundreds of elephants, antelope, and zebras graze on branches and grass, all around that open area. Meat eaters, of course, don't eat plants—but they do snack on those antalope and zebra by stalking them and then pouncing. These meat eaters include leopards, lions, and cheetahs. Underneath the murky waters, crocodiles eat the same. Over in the rainforest, jaguars eat warthogs and other small creatures. Monkeys eat fruits and nuts, different kinds depending on the type of tree that they live in. In the ocean, sharks eat many other fish that they can find. Octopuses eat shellfish like crabs and clams. I think this journey through the animal kingdom with the strange diets of the animals in it is over, and see if you can think of how different these things are compared to your favorite foods.

Puffin with fish

By Tessa Sagner

Bears, Bears, Bears!

Swash! A bear catches a delicious salmon in its favorite creek for fishing. Bears are exellent fishers and can easily catch their favorite food—can you guess what that is? Yup, you guessed it, salmon. Salmon for breakfast, salmon for lunch, salmon for dinner, don't they get sick of it? Okay, okay, we know they eat salmon, but let's talk about something else, like variety. There are many diferent kinds of bears, many of which are endangered. There is the grizzly bear, the panda bear, the largest, which is the polar bear, the Asiatic black bear, and many more. All of these look different and do different things. I think we know all this stuff, so let's get in to the cool stuff! Panda bears are adorably awesome in my opinion, and they eat tons of stuff called bamboo, which we all know, but here's a fact! Pandas eat diiferent parts of the bamboo during different seasons. Pandas are endangered animals, because people are chopping down bamboo forests where they live. Polar bears are next. We learned earlier that they are largest, which is a fruitless thing to repeat. But they are very strong and eat large animals: seals. Yup, they eat seals and can hunt them in an interesting way. The first step is to break a hole in the ice, then wait for a seal to come out of the water, which they normally do. Once they come out of the water, the polar bear kills the seal and eats it for a healthy dinner. Polar bears are white all over for camouflage, but if they had white skin they would get cold, because white reflects heat, so they have black skin for warmth because black absorbs heat. Bears are beautiful creatures on continents all except Antactica and Africa, and are amazing creatures.

The Sly Crew

Out in the beautiful forest, a small group of foxes gather. Foxes are a canid, a kind of family in the carnivora order. Foxes are known for their slyness and secrets. They are a common sight along the sides of roads and other places, but sadly, most foxes only live for 2 to 3 years because of car accidents. But normally, foxes can live for about 10 years. But of course, the animals need food to suvive. So they eat a wide variety of things, including meat such as rabbits, squirrels, and other rodents. They sometimes munch on insects like grasshoppers. Foxes can also eat berries for a healthy fruit diet. Our canid friends need to hunt to get their food, so they start at a pretty early age. Once giving birth, the amount of pups can vary depending on the species. Now, there are a lot of types of fox-like creatures, about 13. The red fox is the most popular and are very well known. But back to the pups. Red foxes usually have around 4. The weight can very depending on the species and if it's a male or female. Males weigh about 13 pounds, with females weighing 11 pounds. Red foxes have a beautiful coat, and a red bushy tail (also called a brush) marked with a white dab on the end. They are usually smaller than a medium-sized domestic dog. Foxes are known throughout the world and are feared and honored for many reasons.

By Tessa Sagner

Gone Forever

ROAR! An allosaurus roars to let others know this is its own area and they are not welcome. Dinosaurs are extinct, meaning no longer alive. Dinosaurs were amazing reptiles that ruled the Earth from 130 million to 65 million years ago, and all died out from something, but we do not know what that is. Rumors are that a massive meteorite came crashing down, blocking the sun for plants, which some dinosaurs ate, leaving the plant eaters to starve, and leaving nothing for the meat eaters to eat but each other, and they all killed each other. There were two main groups of dinosaur, including the ornithopods and the theropods. The ornithopods included many plant eaters, such as triceratops, and the theropods included many meat eaters like allosaurus. Here are some different dinoaurs that lived way back.

1. Fatty triceratops had a big shield behind its head, and one horn over each eye and its nose. It weighed a ton.

2.Velociraptor was a fast but small killer, and had lots of teeth. It was a short dimosaur.

3. Stegosaurus was a plant eater, with many plates on its back, and its secret weapon was its spiky tail.

4. Apatosaurus was a gentle giant, with a very long neck and tail. Even the babies were huge!

5. Tyrannosaurus rex had massive jaws that could crush bone, and was one of the last dinosaurs to live.

6. Spinosaurus was larger than tyrannosaurus, but it lived much eariier. It was a meat eater and had a huge sail on its back.

Fossils are imprints and buried remains of dinosaurs that were preserved in rock and that people dig up. The name of this person is a paleontologist. Trace fossils are fossilized things related to dinosaurs, such as eggs, coprolites (fossilized dinosaur poop) and footprints.

Just The Right Equipment

Scratch!  A lizard's sharp claws grip tightly to a tree branch, one that is completly vertical! But the lizard lizard can't fall; it has adapted to climbing straight up branches in this forest that it lives in. Other animals have special body parts for the environment that they live in. Also animals can live in habitats with incredible temperatures, which they can some how live in. This lizard's claws allow it to climb the trees that are in its habitat. For temperatures, the polar bear lives in extremely cold places, but its food is here, so it wouldn't be able to survive anywhere else. It has white fur for camouflage, but white reflects heat, so to keep itself warm, polar bears have black skin for absorbing heat. Other animals need their food, which can be in interesting places. So some animals have amazing ways of catching their prey in these environments. For example, bald eagles don't have many places to perch on to catch their fish, so they swoop down into the ocean and sometimes come back up with a tasty fish. Do you think it would be funny to live like this, or would it be normal?

By Tessa Sagner

Poachers

Ever wonder why tigers are so rare? Well, the truth is that poachers, or hunters, kill the animals for their amazing fur coats, which is lowering the population in months. That is why some species are becoming endangered. Not all animals are killed on purpose, but sone animals like pandas are dying out because of habitat loss. People love pandas, yet they don't realize they are chopping down bamboo forests where pandas live and get their food. That is only a few ways some animals are dying out. Poachers hunt animals for sport. They hang up deer and bison heads in their home. Game birds are birds that people eat and hunt. These include pheasants, wild turkeys, and many more. If endangered animals die out they will become extinct. This means they have all died out and are no longer living. Some creatures that are already extinct were hunted, which are animals such as great auks. These lived on glaciers and looked a little like penguins. Tasmanian tigers are extinct too, but they were not tigers, not even wolves (even though they looked like them). Instead they were marsupials, animals with a pouch. People should realize these wrong things that they are doing to the animlas. Luckily, scientists are making conservations and laws to help protect our beloved animals.

By Tessa Sagner

Incredible insects

BBBBBBBZZZZZZZZ! Insects are tiny (sometimes they can be large) creatures. Many people think some of these amazing creatures are disgusting, which I don't. Other people think these creatures are just plain boring, just because they are common. Because of this, people like learning about endangered  species. Most insects have 3 main body parts: The head, the thorax, and the abdomen. The head is the smallest part, containing the jaw parts for eating. They also have something called compound eyes. Each eye has many tiny units, each with a cord leading to the brain. The thorax contains many important external features, like the legs and the wings. There are 4 wings in all, each with a colorful coating, called elytra. This is for protecting the wings, and pushes out of the way when the insect flies. The abdomen has important internal features, like the lungs and heart. Insects can easily be hurt by predators. To protect themselves, insects use interesting camouflage. The orchid mantis looks like the inner parts of an orchid, where it lives. But the orchid mantis does not need to hide from predators, it simply is a predator itself. It has to hide from its prey. Do you think insects are disgusting, or do you agree with me and think they are amazing?

Crazy Things

Throughout the world, some animals have incredible abilities that they can do. They use these abilities for many important uses such as scaring away a predator. The first example of a crazy thing an animal can do is the thorny devil. Not only it is covered in spikes, but this is the only lizard that can shoot bright red blood from its eyes. It uses the spikes to camouflage itself, not to hurt. When it is scared, that's when it squirts blood from the eyes. The predator will be surprised and leave it alone. The red spitting cobra does a similar thing. But it doesn't shoot anything from its eyes, but it does shoot dangerous venom from its teeth. It attacks by shooting this venom out at prey. This will blind the prey, allowing the cobra to more easily kill and eat the prey. These are crazy things, thats for sure!

By Tessa Sagner