It’s amazing but elephants can and do swim. Their top speed is about 3.2 kph (2 mph). However, they cannot jump.
Did you know that a giraffes is truly a ‘dumb’ animal unable to make any vocal sound?
A new-born bear cub weighs only about one kg (2 lb) but its mother weighs 127 kg (280 lb).
Elephant
It’s amazing but elephants can and do swim. Their top speed is about 3.2 kph (2 mph). However, they cannot jump.
Mahouts, the elephant keepers in India, use a language to control the animals which is still in use.
The elephant is the only animal with four knees.
Did you know that an African elephant weighs as much as 80 or 90 men?
Hippopotamus
This word actually means ‘river horse’ and, although clumsy and ungainly on land, hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius) are extremely agile in the water. They can even run along the bed of a river.
Barbary Striped Grass Mouse
The Barbary Striped Grass Mouse (Lemniscomys barbarus)of North Africa has stripes similar to those of a tiger.
It was fashionable in the eighteen century to wear false eyebrows made of mouse fur.
The valuable fur known as nutria comes from the giant coypu rat, a native of South America.
Giraffe
Many years ago giraffes were considered gifts of peaces and friendship. Arabs made present of them to rulers in the Far East.
Did you know that a giraffes is truly a ‘dumb’ animal unable to make any vocal sound?
In spite of its extra-long neck, a giraffe has only the same number of bones in its neck as a man or a mouse – seven!
Although he has few enemies, the giraffe can kill a lion with the power of his long legs and heavy hooves.
Fox
At one time people seriously believed that foxes, when hunting chickens, wore foxglove petals on their paws to muffle their tread.
The method of the fox in delousing itself is probably typical of that crafty animal. It collects wool from the hedges were sheep have passed and, holding the wool in its mouth, slowly submerges itself in a stream until the wool is just on the surface. It then releases the wool which floats downstream. When such wool has been examined it has been found to be full of fleas. As the fox submerges the fleas swarm up to the only dry place – the wool!
Kangaroo
A well-known native of Australia is the kangaroo. There are several species, all marsupials, some measuring 1.5 m(5 ft) in length of body with a tail over 1.2 m (40 ft) long. The smallest kangaroo is about the size of a rabbit.
The kangaroo is not constructed but bounds along on its powerful hind legs at speeds of up o 64 kph (40 mph) in leaps of 4 to 6 m (15 to 20 ft). The longest kangaroo jump recorded was over 12 m (40 ft).
A new-born kangaroo measures only 1.9 cm (three quarters of an inch) and stays in its mother’s pouch until it is fully developed.
Polar bear
The Polar bear (Ursus maritimus) is a giant, weighing up to 435.5 kg (1,000 lb).
Its natural food is the seal. It can scent food up to 16 km (10 ml) away and has been seen swimming at a steady 6 to 8 kph (4 to 5 mph) over 160 km (100 ml) from the nearest land.
Eskimos call the bear Nahnook and they pressed the Canadian government to outlaw the white hunters, even though the hunters have to pay the Eskimos £1,000 for every bear they kill.
Over the past few years 5,000 of the animals have been shot in Northern Canada and 3,000 in Norway.
Russia banned the killing of polar bears in 1965.
A new-born bear cub weighs only about 1 kg (2 lb) but its mother weighs 127 kg (280 lb).
Cubs are born helpless, and typically nurse for two and a half years.
Flying squirrel
The flying squirrel does not really fly but glides – sometimes 30 m (110 ft) at a time. The only mammal which really flies is the bat..
The Flying squirrel has flaps of skin between the front and back legs. To move from tree of tree the animal leaps in the direction in which it wants to go and in stretching its four legs out the flap of skin is stretched too and acts like a wing enabling the squirrel to glide safely to its target. The accuracy it can attain is amazing.
Aardvark
The Aardvark is probably known to many people because in lot of dictionaries, it is the first word to appear. The name comes from Afrikaans and means ‘earth pig’.
It has long ear and sharp claws ad a long, sticky tongue and, although resembling a pig in some ways, it is a relative of the anteater.
It uses its sharp claws to dig out ants’ nests and it can burrow faster than a man can dig with a spade. It is a nocturnal animal about 1.5 m (5 ft) long and lives on the ants and termites it catches with its sticky tongue. It lives in Africa.
