Why does a peacock raise its feathers?

The handsome peacock spreads his feathers into a gorgeous fan when he courts the female, or peahen. A peacock is a bird with beautiful, rainbow-colored feathers.  Its range is really “peafowl”.

The male bird is called a peacock.  It is about as large as a turkey and has a long train or greenish feathers brilliantly spotted with bronze blue, green and gold.  A crest adorns his head.

The feather which grow from the back (and not the tail), are spread out into a gorgeous fan as the bird struts back and forth, “proud as a peacock ,” for all to see.

His majestic parade of flashing colors is actually a courtship display to charm the female, or peahen, and persuade her that he is the most handsome peacock.  The peahen is less brightly colored and has no train of feathers.

As you might imagine, the peacock’s magnificent plumage has made it a favorite parts of the world.  A peacock’s call is so loud it can be heard far away.  It sounds like a human screaming. - Dick Rogers

What is a cassowary?

The cassowary is a large, odd-looking bird that lives in the thick forest of Australia and New Guinea. A fully grown cassowary may be five feet tall and weigh two pounds or more.

Like the African relative the ostrich, the cassowary cannot fly.  All that remains of its flight feathers are a few spiny quilts, but it can sprint at speeds of at nearly 40 miles per hour for its long powerful legs, when it danger.

A bony helmet on its featherless head  helps it butt through the heavy underbrush.  Tough bristle like feathers that cover it body serve as a form of armor as it crashes headlong the forest.

A threatened cassowary can be a dangerous foe.  All three of the toes on each foot are armed with knife-sharp claws which can be a deadly weapon in a flight.

Usually, these shy birds are  heard more often than soon in their dense forest home.  They call by snorting and bellowing. - Dick Rogers

What is a crayfish?

Crayfish are small fresh-water shell fish that look like miniature lobsters.

If you have ever played by the bank of stream or pond, you may have seen a small animal that looked like a miniature lobster living at the bottom of the water near the shore. What you saw was a fresh water shell like known as a crayfish.

It is easy to see that the crayfish, sometimes called crawfish or crawdad, and the saltwater lobster are close relatives.  Both have 10 legs.  The front legs end in large pincers.  These pincers are used to catch any prey that comes near,  as well as for defense.

The four other pairs of legs are used for walking. The crayfish escapes from danger by swimming backward through the water with quick flips of its fan-like tail.

Like the lobster, the crayfish hatches from an egg.  A hard shell covers its soft body like a suit of armor. Several times before it is fully grown, the crayfish must shed its outgrown shell and grow a new and larger one. - Dick Rogers

What is a starfish?

A starfish is a star-shaped animal that lives on the bottom of the sea in bays and shallow water.  Starfish eat clams and other shellfish by pulling the shells apart and pushing their stomach into the shells to digest the food.

Starfish have a peculiar way of eating.  The common starfish feeds mostly on shellfish, it especially likes to eat clams, oysters, and mussels.

To open a clam shell, the starfish wraps its arms around it.  Under each arm are rows of tube like feet that stick to the shell like suction cups.  The starfish then pulls the two section of the clam’s shell assist with its powerful arms.

A starfish’s mouth is under its body.  As soon as a starfish has pulled open the clam, it opens its mouth, turns it stomach inside out and pushes it inside the clam’s shell and digests the clam’s soft body.

Once the meat is finished, the starfish pulls back its stomach, leaving only an empty clam shell behind.  Most starfish have five arms, but some have seven arms or more.  If a starfish loose an arm, it can grow another. - Dick Rogers

What are puffins?

Puffins are comical-looking sea birds of the North Atlantic Ocean. Puffins are sometimes called sea parrots, these plump, short-winged sea birds are one of the world’s oddest-looking birds.

A white face with blue lines around the eyes and a comical waddle make the common puffin look like a circus clown. Its enormous beak, colored with red, blue, and yellow bands, is nearly as large as its head.

The gaudy colors of the male puffin’s beak are just for show.  They are really colored growths that drop off after the nesting season.

Despite its comical appearance, the puffin is an expert flier and swimmer.  Puffins can actually swim underwater in pursuit of their prey.  A puffin can catch several fish, one after another, and carry them dangling crosswise in its beak to its nestling.

Puffins nest in large colonies on rocky coasts.  One white egg island in a burrow or crevice in the rocks at nestling time. - Dick Rogers

How are oysters born?

Oysters are hatched from eggs.  An oyster spends all except the first few weeks of its life fastened to a rock or other hard object in the water.

Along the world’s seashores there are many kinds of sea animals with shells to rocks and other hard objects in shallow water near the shore.

A baby oyster is hatched from an egg laid by the mother oyster.  When first hatched, the baby oyster is about the size of a pinpoint and has no shell.  Its shell begins to form when it is a day old.

The baby oyster spends the first two weeks of its life swimming about freely.  Then it fastened itself so something hard, perhaps a rock or the piling of a wharf, or even to the shell of another oyster.

It remains fastened to the same spot for the rest of its life, feeding on tiny plants and animals carried to it by the current. The oyster grows about an inch a mouth until fully grown.  Oysters are one of the most popular foods that we take from the sea. - Dick Rogers

How does a snail grow its shell?

The shell grows in an ever-widening spiral as the snail continues to add new shell material to its shell during its lifetime.

You have probably seen a common garden snail peeking out of its shell as it slowly creeps along on a slick pathway of ooze.

Where did the snail get its shell?  It was born with a tiny shell just the right size for its body.  The shell serves as a suit of armor to protect the snail’s soft body.

As the snail grows, it oozes a slimy shell liquid that hardens into shell, and so the shell grows with the snail. The snail gets its shell-building materials from its food.

There are many kinds of snails, in almost every part of the world.  Some live only on land, some live in lakes and ponds, and others live deep in the ocean. The most snails are hatched from tiny eggs and look very much like their parents when they are born.

Most snail shells are shaped like coiled spirals.  Some are brightly colored with gray stripes.  Some snails grow shells that are no bigger than a pinhead. But the biggest shells belong to the sea snails called conchs.  Their shell grows to be more than a foot long. - Dick Rogers