Why Do Cow’s Chew Their Cuds?

Cow

A cow’s stomach has four parts.  It must chew its food twice before the food can be thoroughly digested.

You eat your food only once, but a cow eats the same food two times.  That is because the cow has an odd way of digesting its food – it has what amounts to four stomachs!

While the cow is grazing it swallows its food whole.  The first stomach just collects the quickly swallowed food.  The second part of the cow’s stomach softens the food and forms it into a ball called a cud.  

Later, while the cow is resting, the cud moves back up into the cow’s mouth where it is chewed thoroughly.  This time, when the food is swallowed, it goes into the third and fourth parts of the stomach, where real digestion takes place.  

Chewing a cud is called ruminating, and cud-chewer are called ruminants.  Sheep, deer and giraffe are ruminants.  In the wild, many of the ruminants must be prepared to eat quickly and run for safety.  When the animal reaches safe place, it can chew its food in peace. - Dick Rogers

What Is An Abalone?

Abalone

An abalone is a kind of sea snail useful for its meat and colorful shell.

It is a kind of sea snail that can be found living in most mild seas.  In many places abalones are known as “ear shells” because their single flattened shell somewhat resembles a human ear.

The abalone spends most of its life clinging to submerged rocks with its flat muscular foot.  It can fasten itself to a rock so tightly that only a knife can pry it loose.

It feeds on the plants that it can scrape off the rocks with its rasp like tongue.  Its hard shell, which may grow from a few inches to nearly a foot long, protects the abalone’s soft body.

Abalone steak, the snail’s large foot, is a popular seafood dish in many countries.  The pearly inner lining of the shell, called “mother-of-pearl,” is used in making buttons and other ornaments.  The abalone builds its shell out of lime from the water.  The shell grows as the abalone grows. - Dick Rogers

What Are Barnacles?

Barnacle

A barnacle is a short salt water shellfish that attaches itself to ship hulls, rocks, docks and other underwater objects.  Anyone who goes to the seashore is likely to see barnacles.

A barnacle hatches from an egg as a tiny, free-swimming creature.  But soon it fastens itself to any convenient object, such as the hull of a ship, pilling, rock, or even a passing whale.

Once attached, a hard, limy shell grows around the barnacle.  The barnacles stay for the rest of its life in the place where it settles.

It eats by waving its feathery legs through an opening in the shell to pull tiny sea creatures and plants into its mouth.  The shell has a lid that can be closed in case of danger.

To sailors the barnacle is a trouble.  Masses of them clinging to a ship’s hull reduce the ship’s speed.  The only way to remove barnacles’ shell is to put the ship in dry dock and scrape its bottom. - Dick Rogers

How Did The Secretary Bird Get Its Name?

Secretary Bird

The quills on the secretary bird’s head make it look like an old-time secretary with quill pens stuck behind his ears.  The odd-looking secretary bird is a South African bird of prey.

The reason for this bird’s name is easy to guess because of the tuft of long, stiff feathers that stick out from the back of its head.  The tuffs resemble the quill pens that old-time secretaries and clerks once carried behind their ears.

The secretary bird has a long neck and very long legs.  It is about four-feet tall and its plumage is gray and black.  It usually prefers to run instead of fly and is the only bird of prey that hunts on foot.

An inhabitant of Africa’s grassy plains, the secretary bird feeds chiefly on snakes, which it kills by stamping on the snake with its strong  feet and biting it with its hooked bill.  In their native home, farmers often tame secretary birds and keep them to kill rats and mice.  Another name for the secretary bird is “serpent eagle.”-Dick Rogers

What Bird Is The Greatest Traveler?

Greatest Traveler

The arctic tern is the greatest bird traveler.  It migrates farther than any other bird.

The arctic tern is a graceful black and white sea bird with a forked tail and long wings.  During the summer the arctic tern nests in the arctic.  

In the fall it begins a long journey to the most southern parts of the world, the Antarctic!  And arctic tern’s round trip journey may e as long as 22,000 miles.  Birds that travel are called “migrants”, and their journeys are called “migrations.”

Scientists learn how far birds travel when they migrate through bird banding.  The birds are captured in a trap and aluminum bands are fastened around their legs.  Then they are released unharmed.

When caught again at a different place, code numbers on the bands show how far they have traveled from the place where they were banded. In this way the route of the arctic tern was discovered. - Dick Rogers

How Do Canaries Learn To Sing?

Canary Bird

Young canaries learn to sing by taking, “Singing Lessons” from older birds.  People keep canaries for their songs, and because they make cheerful pets.

Young canaries are given singing lessons.  People who raise canaries take great care in training them to sing.  The male canary is the best songster.  

The young canaries imitate the songs of other birds, so they learn by listening to older birds that sing especially well.  Besides, music is played for them.

Sometimes canaries can even be taught to sing like nightingales by playing those records of nightingale songs.

Canaries are named for the Canary Island, the home of their wild ancestors,  Long ago, when Spanish explorers landed on one of their island homes, they found many wild dogs.  So they named the Island “Canaries,”  which means “isle of Dogs,” and canaries got their name from the Island.  There are still wild canaries on this island.

Wild canaries can sing, but their songs are not nearly as beautiful as those of the tame birds which have been bred for many generations for the quality of their songs. – Dick Rogers

What Is A Marten?

Pole Cat

Marten are slim, weasel-like animals that live in the Northern forests around the world.  Martens are small, weasel-like animals with slender bodies and long, bushy tails.

One of the best-known martens is the American martens, often called the American sable.

The American marten is found only in the denser forests of North America.  It is about the size of the house cat and has soft, golden-brown fur.  Its favorite den is a mosslined hollow, high up in a tree.  But a rock pile or hollow log will often do as well.

This agile animal is an expert tree climber.  It chases squirrels through the treetops, leaping easily from one branch to another.  On the ground, it hunts mice, rabbits and other small animals.

Unfortunately for the little marten it, too, is hunted.  Its rich, lustrous fur is prized for coats, flats, and muffs.  Its chief enemies, besides man, are the horned owl and the lynx.  Because they have become quite rare, martens are protected by law in many of our states. – Dick Rogers