Animal facts for kids


Most fish think twice before making a meal of a porcupine fish. By swallowing large amounts of water or air very quickly, a frightened porcupine fish can puff its body up to several times its normal size. This instinctive response to danger makes the...

Slow and elegant, the lionfish is one coral reef inhabitant you don't want to cuddle. While their colorful stripes and long arching fins make them favorites of aquarium collections, the lionfish's spines are loaded with venom. An injection of venom...

A "leaf with legs" is an insect that looks like a leaf. This peculiar insect has broad ribbed wings, which fold over its back in the shape of a leaf, and leaflike growths on the joints of each leg. When a bright green leaf insect stands on a bright...

Easy to hear, cicadas are hard to find. In trying to stay out of sight, they will move around a branch, hiding from view. The cicada is about the noisiest of all insects. Some cicadas are so loud that they can be heard a quarter-mile (.4 kilometer)...

For about as long as anybody can remember, mice and men have been constant companions, though the relationship has not always been a happy one. The word "mouse," for example, illustrates both the antiquity and the adversarial relationship between man...

A "twig with legs" is one of nature's best camouflaged insects. When you are in the woods, don't be surprised to see a slender piece of twig suddenly come to life and slowly walk away on six long, spindly legs. This is not a miracle but a walking stick...

scientific name Ursus maritimus size Weight: male 770-1430+ lbs.; female 385-660+ lbs. Height: standing, male to 11'; female 6-8' adaptations/colorations Color: white or yellowish; white serves as camouflage Body. heavy layers of blubber up to...

Birdwing butterflies are the biggest butterflies in the world, with wingspans of up to 11 inches (28 cm). These colorful butterflies are so large that collectors once hunted them with bows and arrows! They are found in the tropical rainforests of...

Kangaroo rats have a unique respiratory system that actually allows them to lower the temperature of the air they breathe! A famous experiment done in the early 1970s showed that kangaroo rats breathing air at 28°C exhaled air with a temperature of...

(Alligator mississipiensis) Family: Alligatoridae Order: Crocodilia Class: Reptilia Phylum: Vertebrata Physical Features: Thick bodies and tails. Many sharp teeth. Short, strong legs for walking. Eyes high so they can see above water. Skin tough....

Sloths are a member of the order Edentata, which technically means "without teeth", although Sloths have small, simple molars with which they use to masticate food. Sloths are herbivores, and, like the other familes in the order Edentata, do not hunt...

The ears of crickets and katydid bugs are in their legs, right near their knees. They don't work terribly well, though. Crickets and katydids can only distinguish between kinds of sounds - telling the difference between the sounds of animals and the...