What is a flying fox?

A flying fox is a kind of large bat, not a fox.  It is the largest bat in the world.  Its wingspread may be more than four feet, and its hairy body may be a foot long and weigh as much as three pounds.

The flying fox gets its name because its face and long, slender snout look like that of a fox.  Flying foxes are also called fruit bats.  Flying foxes live in most tropical parts of the world, where fruit is continually ripening.

They spend the day nesting in trees, hanging upside down from branches with their wings folded around their bodies like blankets.

At sundown the bats leave their roosts and search for an orchard of ripe fruit to eat.  When fruit is hard to find, flying foxes live by fishing.  They skim over the water and catch fish with their feet.

Unlike other bats that must depend on the echoes of their own voices to guide them as they fly about at night, flying foxes and other fruit bats have good eyes, and guide themselves mostly by sight, just as you and I do.-Dick Rogers

Is the sea anemone a plant or an animal?

When it is time to feed, the sea anemone will open up like a flower.  The sea anemone (pronounced “un NEM oh nee”) is a strange sea animal whose many graceful tentacles (tiny arms) often look like the petals of a flower.

A cluster of sea anemones looks very much like an undersea garden of brightly colored, red, purple, green, and blue blossoms.  Although sea anemones may look like harmless flowers, their touch means death to small fishes and other small sea creatures.

When a small fish happens to swim too close to the sea anemone and touch the tentacles, tiny, needle-like poisoned threads shoot out of the tentacles and sting the fish.  Then the tentacles drag the helpless prey into the sea anemone’s mouth.

The foot of the sea anemone allows it to slide about slowly on rocks.  But usually, they anchor themselves by gripping rocks, shells, or burrow into the sandy floor of the ocean.  Then a sea anemone is disturbed, it pulls its tentacles inside the body.  It then looks like a round lump on the rock.-Dick Rogers

How does an octopus eat?

The octopus has a powerful parrot-like beak in its mouth that it uses to crack the hard shells or crass and oysters.  The octopus is a sea animal with a soft, bag-shaped body.  It gets its name from two Greek words that mean “eight feet.”  We call its eight feet “arms.”

The octopus dwells on the ocean bottom where it crawls about on its arms, searching in every crack and crevice for its favorite food of shrimp, crab, and mussels. On each of the eight arms there are two rows of cup-like suckers which help the octopus grab and hold very tightly to anything it catches.

The arms do not squeeze and prey, but pull it toward the creature’s mouth.  An octopus has two very strong jaws that look like the beak of parrot.  It uses its jaws to crush crab shells and to tear apart the food it eats.

The long, snakelike arms and large, unwinking, strangely human eyes give it a frightening look.  Most kinds of octopus are only about as big as a man’s fist, and do not attack people.  Some however, have poisoned jaws and bites from even a small octopus.-Dick Rogers

How many eggs does a chicken lay in a year?

A typical egg-laying hen can lay as many as 250 eggs a year.  Egg-laying hens, call pullets, begin laying eggs when they are about five months old.  On a small farm, a chicken might lay eight to ten eggs in a nest and spend three weeks hatching them.  

But on a large commercial egg farm, the eggs are taken away as soon as they are laid, and the chicken jus keeps laying.  Chickens produce the most eggs during their first laying year.  After a year or so, they are usually sold as stewing chickens, and the egg farmer buys a new flock of pullets.–Dick Rogers

What is a called blooded animal?

Cold Blooded Animal

Many animals such as fish, frogs, snakes and lizards are often called “cold-blooded,” as opposed to “warm-blooded” mammals and birds.  

This does not mean their blood is always cold.  Unlike warm-blooded animals, they do not have built-in temperature controls that keep their bodies evenly warmed.

Instead, their body temperature is usually near that of the surrounding air or water air or water.  The cold-blooded animal is hot in hot weather, and cold in cold weather.  

Many depend on the sun for their body heat. Lizards, for example bask in the sun to warm their bodies.-Dick Rogers

Where does the electric eel get its electricity?

An electric eel gives off electricity from special battery-like organs inside its body.  The electric eel that lives in the rivers of South America has a very unusual weapon.  It can turn on a powerful electric current at will.  It make its electricity with special electric organs inside its body.

These electric batteries are powerful enough to light a neon sign and strong enough to knock out an animal as large as a horse!  An enemy first that swims too near may receive a paralyzing shock from these living electric batteries.

The electric eel uses its shocking organs to stun small fishes and frogs it eats, as well as to defend itself.  The electric ray, or torpedo found in warm seas is another well-known electric fish.

The batteries of the electric ray are on the sides of the fish’s head.  They are much like the batteries of the electric eel.  The electric catfish, which grows to be about three feet long, is found in the river of Africa.

Its electric power is used up after a number of short shocks.  Then it must eat and rest before it can shock again.-Dick Rogers

Can fish drown?

Fish can drown under certain conditions.  It isn’t the water that keeps fish alive, but the oxygen in the water.  Fish breathe oxygen, just as we do.  The water contains oxygen that comes from the air or is given off by water plants.  A fish takes the oxygen out of the water by means of its gills.  

When a fish is placed in a small tank of water, however, it may soon use up all the oxygen that is in the water.  If this happens, the fish suffocates.  This is why, if you keep pet fish, you must change the water frequently in order to give them a fresh supply of oxygen.–Dick Rogers