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It’s easy to be impressed by the biggest animals at the zoo—tall, graceful giraffes, roaring lions, and gentle elephants are always crowd-pleasers. But the Minnesota Zoo is home to some tiny animals that are none the less amazing: butterflies. Their butterfly garden is home to beautiful insects from near and far, and their website is home to tons of fun facts about them. For example, did you know that some butterflies, like this mourning cloak butterfly, hibernate during the winter? Or that butterflies see all the colors that we do, but also ultraviolet colors whose wavelengths are too long for us to see? The more you learn about these incredible animals, the more you’ll realize that the biggest zoo animals aren’t the only ones that are cool!
Photo by SD Dirk
Lots of animals have camouflage, colors and textures that help them blend into their environments– think of dull brown ducks that blend into the ground where they nest, or green katydid insects that blend into the leaves. But what about tigers?
At first glance, their bright orange coats don’t seem like they’d be good for blending into anything!
However, their orange coloring and black stripes actually provide excellent camouflage in the grassy forests where they live. Their stripes blend in with the tall grasses that
they crouch behind, and their orange color actually provides pretty good cover when they’re hunting at dusk when the sun is setting. Check it out!
Photo by Hanzasoukup
Cheetah at Whipsnade Zoo
The St. Louis Zoo is home to some amazing animals, including cheetahs. Even if you can’t make it out to the zoo to visit them, you can still learn all about these amazing animals on their website. For instance, have you ever noticed the long black “teardrops” under cheetahs’ eyes? On their site, you can learn about how these stripes may help cheetahs see their prey better by reducing glare, like the eye black that baseball players wear. Is there anything else you’ve ever wondered about these animals? There’s a good chance that you can find the answers with a little help from the St. Louis Zoo!
Photo by William Warby.
Check out this gorgeous pod of dolphins, drawn by our very own Zoobooks readers!
The dolphins and porpoises in the latest issue of Zoobooks have a lot in common, but here are a few ways to tell them apart!
1. Beak
Dolphins and porpoises have differently shaped beaks—porpoises have short, rounded noses, while dolphin’s beaks are longer and pointier.
2. Teeth
Dolphin teeth are cone-shaped, but porpoises’ teeth are shaped like spades.
3. Dorsal fin
Porpoises’ dorsal fins (the fins that stick up from the middle of their back) are curved, but dolphins have triangular dorsal fins.
4. Body shape
Most dolphins have long, lean, torpedo-like bodies, while porpoises are usually chubbier.
5. “Chattiness”
Dolphins and porpoises are extremely intelligent animals, and they communicate with each other just like humans do. However, dolphins make whistling noises with their blowholes to communicate with each other underwater, but porpoises don’t. Scientists think this is due to porpoises’ blowholes being built differently.
Can you tell whether the animal in this picture is a dolphin or a porpoise?
Photo via Wikimedia Commons.
In this month’s issue of Zoobooks, you’ve met all kinds of animal champions—the fastest, strongest, coolest critters out there. Our Zooworks winners have captured some of those amazing animals in their artwork. Which one is your favorite?
This month’s issue of Zoobooks features animal all-stars—the biggest, fastest, furthest-traveling, loudest, and lots of other “–est”s. To celebrate some of these amazing animals, here are five fun animal superlatives.
Loudest animal—Blue Whale
Blue whales aren’t just the biggest animals ever to live—they’re also the loudest animals alive. They can produce sounds up to 140 decibels, as loud as a jet engine from a hundred feet away. The second-loudest animals are howler monkeys, which can be heard from miles around their South and Central American jungle homes.
Fastest-flapping wings—Honeybee
We often think of hummingbirds as a go-to example of animals that flap their wings incredibly quickly, but at 200 wing flaps per second, honeybees leave them in the dust.
Most poisonous animal—Poison dart frog
Golden poison dart frogs contain enough poison to kill 10 adult humans, or 20,000 mice. Not bad for a two-inch-long frog! Their poison discourages predators from eating them.
Fastest animal—Peregrine Falcon
Cheetahs might be the fastest land animals at 60 mph, but diving Peregrine Falcons reach speeds of up to 242 miles per hour!
Smallest mammal—bumblebee bat
Bumblebee bats weigh only two grams (though that’s still four times bigger than an actual bumblebee). These endangered bats lives in caves in Southeast Asia.
To test your knowledge on other animal all-stars, take this quiz on our website! How many animal champion facts do you know?
Photo by Wilfried Berns.
Seabirds can fly great distances, but you’d have to go even further than they can fly to find artists as talented as our Zoobooks readers! Do you have a favorite?
You’re probably seen your fair share of seagulls in mall parking lots, but sea birds are most commonly found by—you guessed it—the sea. Of the 8,600 identified bird species in the world, only 260 are sea birds. There’s a lot of variety in the different kinds of seabirds, but they all rely on the oceans for their food.
The largest seabird is the wandering albatross—they have wingspans that reach over eleven feet! They use their broad wings to soar for long periods of time without getting tired—a wandering albatross can fly 10,000 miles in a single journey.
Most seabirds feed on fish—puffins can fit sixty small fish in their mouth at once! Some seabirds rely on other forms of ocean life. For example, little auks eat tiny animals called zooplankton that float through the ocean.
The next time you’re by a big body of water, see if you can spot any seabirds!
Photo by JJ Harrison
This month, our Zooworks winners got in touch with their inner poets! These were some of our favorite poems that we got about this month’s animal, kangaroos. Which one is your favorite?
The Wild World of Zoobooks 