Porcupine

We just learned about the Duck Billed Platypus.

Another fun animal is a Porcupine.

When you see a porcupine, it might look like a cute little animal,
but don't try to pet it unless you want to get poked!

Porcupines have quills, which look like long sharp needles that stick out from their backs.
The needles are actually made of keratin, the same as the spikes on a cat's tongue,
a turtle's shell, and rhino's horn.

The quills have little barbs on them, that are like small needles pointing the opposite way.
So when you get a porcupine quill stuck in you, it's really hard to get it out.
This helps the porcupine protect itself.


(from: wikipedia - porcupine)

What happens when a porcupine pokes itself?

The porcupines have antibiotic medicine built right into it's skin,
so even if it falls out of a tree and pokes itself with a quill, it will heal up fast!

(from: wikipedia - porcupine)

Duck Billed Platypus

We just learned a little about Squirrels.

When scientists first discovered the platypus and tried to tell
other people about it, everyone thought they were joking!

No one thought there could really be an animal with fur and a tail like a beaver's tail,
and also a bill, webbed feet and lays eggs like a duck!


(from: wikipedia - platypus)

Another interesting thing about the platypus is that they have a small claw (also called a spur)
on their back foot that is poisonous!

Squirrel

Squirrels are fun silly little animals, and exciting to watch as they run around climbing trees.

There are over 280 different types of squirrels, from the fox squirrels we see very often,
to the White tailed antelope squirrel and the Thirteen lined ground squirrel.

Squirrels live in pretty much every part of the planet, from super wet tropical rainforests to super dry deserts!
They pretty much only don't live in super freezing areas like Antarctica.


(from: wikipedia - fox squirrel)

When you see a squirrel running around burying nuts in the ground,
that's the way they save up food for the coming fall and winter.
They are called scatter-hoarders, because they scatter their food and hoard it.

Sometimes the squirrels forget where they bury the nuts, and the buried nuts grow and turn into trees.
If a squirrel thinks it is being watched by someone who is going to steal their nuts,
some smart squirrels will even just pretend to dig a hole and bury the nut,
and then move on to another place!


(from: wikipedia - squirrel)

Armadillo

We just learned a little about the Manatee.

Armadillos are tough little armored animals!

The name armadillo is Spanish for little armored one.
Their armor is made up of bone, covered up in scutes,
like the scutes on a turtle shell.


(from: wikipedia - armadillo)

Some armadillos can roll up in a ball to protect themselves.

(from: wikipedia - southern three banded armadillo)

Armadillos come in all shapes and sizes, from the pink fairy armadillo
which could fit in the palm of your hand:

(from: wikipedia - pink fairy armadillo)

To the giant armadillo, which is the size of a pig!

(from: wikipedia - giant armadillo)

Another interesting thing is that when the nine-banded armadillo has babies,
it always has identical quadruplets!

Four baby armadillos that are exactly the same, every time!

Manatee

We just learned about Hippo Sunscreen.

The manatee is a large animal that lives in the water.

Some people also call it a sea cow because it is so big,
and there are legends that people used to think they were mermaids.

When a manatee blinks, it doesn't an eyelid like a human does,
it just has muscles around it's eye that close.

Try making a small circle with your fingers, and then close it up tight.
That's sort of how their eyelids work!

(from: wikipedia - manatee)

Hippo Sunscreen

We just learned about how frogs breathe with their cheeks

Hippos live in the hot Southern part of the African continent.

With all that sun out there, they've got to keep from getting a sunburn,
and their bodies have a pretty cool way to do it.

From underneath a hippo's skin comes a type of gooey stuff called mucus,
and it comes out through their skin like sweat.

It's red colored, and it looks like sweat, so people sometimes call it blood sweat,
but it's really two kinds of acid that mix together in the hippo's body
and then come out through their skin like sweat.

This red gooey mucus acid stuff (called hipposudoric and norhipposudoric acid)
is the hippo's natural sunscreen!

It turns hard and it stays on their body even if they go in and out of the water.

(from: wikipedia - hippopotamus)

Wouldn't it be great if our body could make it's own sunscreen?

Horse withers

We just learned about Cow Stomachs

Let's learn a little about Horses

Horses are big wonderful animals, with the largest eyes of any land animal.

When people want to measure a horse, they measure from the ground to the horse's withers.
The withers is the spot on the horse where the neck meets the back.

Horses are measured in hands, which is the same as 4 inches.
So if a horse is 15 hands high, then it is 15 * 4 = 60 inches tall at the withers.

(from: wikipedia - horse)

Cow Stomachs

We just learned about the Cat's Tongue.

Have you ever heard that cows have 4 stomachs?
Well that's sort of true!

Cows really only have one big stomach, but it has four parts.
Each part of the stomach has a different job, like using up the food or water.

Cows also sometimes burp their food back up, chew it again and swallow it back down!
Yuck!
That's called chewing their cud.

(from: wikipedia - cattle)

Cows can be known by many names, depending on if they are male, female, young, old and lots of other things.

These are all names for cows: bull, calf, cow, heifer, cattle, feeders, yearlings, stirks, steer, ox, springer, bullocks, stag, rig, freemartin, neat, beefing, pollard, milker, bovine

The word cow really means a grownup female cattle, but a lot of people just use the word cow.
Maybe it's just a fun word to say!

Cat tongue

We just learned about the Northern Pike.

Have you ever been licked by a cat?

You'd know if you had, because their tongue is very rough!
It's rough like that to help when they're grooming, and if you look up close
you can see that their tongue has little spikes on it, almost like a hair brush!

(from: wikipedia - cat)

The spikes on the cat's tongue are made of keratin.
The same thing your hair and fingernails are made of,
and also rhino horns, turtle shells, and whale teeth!

Flying squirrel

We just learned a little about Earthworms.

Squirrels are fuzzy little crazy creatures that can scramble up and down trees almost faster than you can see.
Just think how crazy it would be if squirrels could fly!

There really is such a thing as a flying squirrel, but it doesn't really fly as much as it glides, kind of like a paper airplane.

The flying squirrel has skin between it's arms and legs, called patagium, just like a bat's wings.


(from: wikipedia - flying squirrel)

When it jumps from one tree to the next, it spreads out its arms and legs to glide through the air.

Kangaroos

We just learned about the Spider Monkey.

Kangaroos are a type of animal known as a marsupial.

Marsupials carry their babies in a pouch. Baby kangaroos are known as joeys.

(from: wikipedia - kangaroo)

Spider Monkey

Is a Spider Monkey a cross between a spider and a monkey?

Nope! It's just a monkey with really long arms and legs,
so when it climbs through the trees it sort of looks like a big black spider.

(from: wikipedia - spider monkey)

Red Panda

We just learned about the Turtle Scutes.

The Red Panda just might be the cutest animal in the world,
but would it make a good pet?


(from: wikipedia - red panda)

It's only a bit larger than most cats, and smaller than most dogs,
so who knows why this adorable fuzzy crawler hasn't made its way into homes yet.


Some people believe that Indira Gandhi kept one as a pet, so anything's possible!


The red panda doesn't like hot temperatures, and likes to stay up at night, which means it's nocturnal.

Wolverine

We just learned about the Arctic Fox.

Don't judge this animal by his size!

The Wolverine is known to be a very ferocious animal,
and even sometimes will try to fight a bear or wolf for food!

(from: wikipedia - wolverine)

The wolverine is also famous.

One of Michigan's nicknames is the Wolverine State and the University of Michigan uses the wolverine as it's mascot because of it's fierce reputation.

Arctic Fox

We just learned about the Chameleon.

The arctic fox's fur changes color from brown in the summer, to white in the winter!

(from: wikipedia - arctic fox)

It does this of course to blend in to the snow so it can hide from predators or prey.

The arctic fox also has super great hearing.
If there is an animal buried underneath the snow, the fox can listen to find exactly where it is,
then pounce down into the snow and get it!

Zebras

We just learned about Prairie Dogs.

Is a zebra white with black stripes, or black with white stripes?

(from: wikipedia - zebra)

Every zebra's stripe patterns are different, but if you look on their bodies
you can see the stripes on their face, neck and shoulders go up and down,
but on their legs and behind they go side to side.

There are lots of different ideas about why zebras have stripes.
Some people say it's to help them hide in grass, or confuse predators
by blending all of their stripes together.
Others have found that it helps confuse flies so they don't get bitten so much!

Whatever the reason is, they're definitely dressed to party.
Even an albino zebra still looks pretty wild!

Prairie Dogs

We just learned about the Anteater.

Prairie Dogs are small animals found in North America, that are part of the squirrel family.


(from: wikipedia - prairie dog)

If you see the small hole in the ground for a prairie dog,
you might just think it's a small place for them to hide out in the storm,
but prairie dog holes, or burrows can be up to 33 feet long and 10 feet under ground!

And they're not just a simple hole either, they are tunnels with small little rooms (or chambers).
There can be up six different entrances to the underground tunnels,
and they sometimes have different chambers for raising babies,
sleeping, and hiding out from the cold in the winter.

Anteater

We just learned about Shark Teeth.

How would you like to eat ants for dinner every day?

Ants and termites are the favorite meal of the anteater!

(from: wikipedia - anteater)

Anteaters use their large claws to dig through dirt or tree bark looking for ants,
and when they find them they use their big long tongue to lick up the ants.

They have to lick fast before the ants get away, and they can lick 150 times a minute.
Once the ants get in their mouth, they go right down to their belly because the anteaters don't have any teeth!

Coyote yips

We just learned about the Komodo Dragon.

Coyotes are animals like dogs that live in North and Central America.


(from: wikipedia - coyote)

They are mostly nocturnal which means they sleep during the day
and hunt for food at night.

Even though a coyote is like a dog, their howl doesn't sound like a dog or wolf howl.
It's a very high sound, and can almost sound like a bird, and some people say it sounds like yip yip or yi-yi

Camel humps

We just learned about Rhino Teeth and Horns.

There are two kinds of camels in the world, the kind with one hump and the kind with two humps.

One hump camels are called dromedary camels.

(from: wikipedia - camel)

Two hump camels are called bactrian camels.


In the old days, people thought camels just stored big bags of water inside their humps.
In a way that's right, because they're actually big piles of fat.

When the camels exercise or do something to burn that fat,
their body turns the fat into energy and water that helps keep the camel from drying up in the hot weather.