What are jellyfish?

Jellyfish are unusual sea animals that have jellylike bodies and stinging tentacles, with which they capture their food. The jellyfish is among the strangest of sea creatures.

It is not even a fish, but a very simple kind of sea animal that has no skeleton.  The main pair of the jellyfish’s body looks like an umbrella, and it is made up of two thin layers of tissue with jellylike materials between them.

Around the rim of the umbrella are usually a number of simple eyes, and in the center of the body underneath is the mouth.

Hanging down from the edge are string like tentacles, armed with batteries of stinging cells filled with paralyzing poison.

If a small bumps into the jellyfish’s tentacles, it gets stung and captured for food. If you touch these tentacles, you may get stung, too!

A jellyfish swims by folding and unfolding its body—much like closing an umbrella.  Mostly, it floats along with the current.  Some jellyfish are no larger than a pea.  Other may be two feet or more in diameter.-Dick Rogers

Is the wise old owl really wise?

Although its big, staring eyes make the own look like it is thinking very hard, it is really no smarter than other birds.

Owls look wise because their big, staring eyes and thoughtful air give the appearance that they are thinking very hard.

Actually, the “wise old owl” is really no smarter that other birds. In fact, geese, crows, and ravens are all smarter than the owl.  A person can recognized an owl at once by its large, broad face with a fur of feathers around the large eyes.

Unlike the eyes of most birds, the owl’s eyes are in front of its head and point forward. But to see in another direction, the own must turn its whole head.

Persons walking around a perched owl are often amused at the way it seems in danger of twisting its head off while watching them.

The owl comes out at night to hunt for mice and other small creatures.  Its large eyes can see in the dimmest light.

But the owl does not depend on its eyes alone for hunting.  Its keen ears can hear the faintest sound and its cry startles small animals into revealing their location. The owl’s soft feathers allow it to swoop down silently on its prey.-Dick Rogers

What are ladybirds?

Ladybirds are really small, spotted beetles with a rounded body shaped like half a pea. The polka-dotted ladybird, or ladybug, is really  small beetle with a round body shaped like half a pea.

The most familiar ladybirds are shiny red with black spots.  But some are black with red spots.  Still others are yellow with black of red spots.

These gaily colored insects live in a orchards, gardens, and fields, where they eat great number of aphids and other plant-harming bugs.

In order times, farmers burning off their fields fretted about harming the helpful ladybird, giving rise to the children’s verse:  “ladybird, ladybird, fly away home.  Your house is on fire and your children are gone.”

To “fly away home,” a ladybird first raises its hard wing covers and then unfolds it flying wings.  The lady bird beetle got its name during the Middle Ages, when the insect was associated with the Virgin Mary by such names as creatures of Our Lady and Animals of the Virgin.-Dick Rogers

What are condors and where do they live?

The condor’s giant wingspread make it the largest vulture in the world. Condors are large, dark vultures that can be found living high up in the remote parts of the California Mountains of North America, and in the higher mountains of South America.

A condor may grow to be over 4 feet long and have a wingspread of nearly 11 feet.  It is one of the largest flying birds in the world.

The condor is useful to man as an animal garbage collector.  It helps keep the ground clean by feeding on dead animals which otherwise might present a health danger.

Like all vultures, condors have small, naked heads and hooked beaks.  They have no voice, but hiss like a snake when disturbed.

Though ugly to look at, condors are powerful and graceful in flight.  They spend much of their time wheeling and circling high overhead searching for food.  Their remarkable eyesight can spy out the smallest dead animal from great heights.

Because their wings are so large and heavy, baby condors are nearly a year old before they have the strength to soar. - Dick Rogers

Are tarantulas poisonous?

In the United Stales, any large, hairy spider is popularly called a tarantula.  It looks fierce but it is not as dangerous as it looks.  Its bite is no more harmful to man than that of most other spiders found in the United States.  But it can inflict a painful wound in self-defense.

Most tarantulas make homes in deep burrows.  They come out at night to look for food, and lie hidden among the leaves or in the burrow.  When an insect comes along, the tarantula rushes out and bites it, and then drags it into its burrow.

During the winter, the tarantula shuts itself up in its home with a silken door.  The tarantula gets its name from a large wolf spider found near Taranto, a town in Italy.

Long go, it was believed that people bitten by this spider came ill with a disease called “tarantism.”  The cure was said to be for the victim to dance and skip about to music until he became well.  From this old belief came the tarantella, a lively Italian folk dance.-Dick Rogers

How does a duck keep dry in the water?

A duck’s feathers are made water-proof by oil from a special oil gland near its tail.  A duck is able to deep dry while swimming because its coat of closely packed feathers is actually waterproof.

A duck’s feathers are made waterproof by oil from a special oil gland hear the duck’s tail, which the duck rubs on its feathers.  Oil and water will not mix, and so the water will not soak into the oil-covered feathers and the duck keeps dry.

A duck or any other water bird that covers its feathers with oil, such as a swan or a goose, will sink in the water if the oil is removed.

A thick undercoat of down helps keep the duck warm in icy waters.  A duck swims by paddling with its webbed feet.  A baby duck does not need swimming lessons.

It knows to swim as soon as it hatches from the egg. The mother duck leads the baby ducks to the water as soon as they are able to travel.

The ducklings cannot fly for six weeks or more after they hatch.  Though a duck can swim with easy grace in the water, it waddles clumsily on land.  It is hard for ducks to walk because their legs are short and placed so far on the body.–Dick Rogers

What does the blue whale eat?

As big as the blue whale is, it eats only the tiniest plants and creatures in the ocean.  A giant blue whale 100 feet long and weighing nearly 150 tons makes an elephant look small.

The blue whale is perhaps the biggest animal that ever lived.  But as big as the blue whale is, it eats the smallest bits of food it can find in the oceans.

The blue whale has no teeth, so it can’t chew food, and its throat is so small that it can only swallow small fish.  So it eats mostly tiny plants and sea creatures called plankton that drift about in the ocean.

Instead of teeth, long stringy plates of whalebone hang like curtains from the top of the blue whale’s mouth.  They are used like a strainer.  To eat, the blue whale swims through the plankton with its mouth wide open. 

The blue whale then squeezes the water out with its big tongue and swallows the plankton trapped on the whalebone.  It takes barrels of plankton to fill the blue whale’s big stomach.  There are other toothless whales, but some whales have strong teeth, such as the killer whale, and throats large enough to swallow chunks of food.-Dick Rogers