What is a penguin? Penguins are a group of flightless, aquatic birds. Flightless means that they cannot fly in the air like most other birds. Aquatic means they spend lots of time in the water. The wings of penguins are called flippers. Penguin flippers are…
1. True or False? All penguins live in Antarctica. False! Only two penguin species, the emperor and Adélie penguins are found only in Antarctica. Several more penguin species are found both on Antarctica and surrounding sub-Antarctic islands. There are also penguins in Africa, South America, Australia, and New…
1. True or False? Giant pandas have always lived in China. False! One of the oldest known giant panda fossils (or rather one of its direct ancestors) was found in Spain. It is over 11 million years old. Pandas were in Europe at some point…
Celebrate International Polar Bear Day, learn about polar bears and how you can help them.
February 19th is World Pangolin Day! Pangolins are awesome scaly mammals. There are 8 species of pangolins: 4 in Africa and 4 in Asia. But pangolins around the world are at risk of extinction. Pangolins are hunted in large numbers for their scales and meat.…
What would happen if nature threw a scaly dinosaur and a koala into a blender and spit the result back out to live in the forests and grasslands of Africa and Asia? The result might look like a pangolin: A pangolin. Photo credit: Tikki Hywood…
Reading level: Grade 5-6 You might think all rare and unique animals are discovered in remote places … like rainforests, mountaintops, or deserts. Not in the case of the Romer’s tree frog! This is the story of how this little frog found itself living in…
Did you know that there is a cat that looks like Tigger in real life? It is not a tiger though. Meet the clouded leopard. It bounces through the trees of its home in the rainforests of Southeast Asia. It can also climb up trees very…
By Pritha Dey, expert moth-er 1. Prometopidia joshimathensis This drab-colored Geometrid moth was discovered in a semi-urban forest fragment, in the busy tourist town of Joshimath in the western Himalayan state of Uttarakhand, India. Dr Pritha Dey along with Dr Axel Hausmann and Dr Dieter…
Image: Rhett A. Butler Quiz time! See if you can answer these sea cucumber questions … 1. Who appeared on Earth first, sea cucumbers or dinosaurs? You lose, dinosaurs. The oldest known sea cucumber fossils are about 400 million years old. The first known dinosaur fossils…
Weevil? Hmmm. Yuck, you might be thinking?! Well, how about this little creature? Meet the spectacular Schoenherr’s blue, a shiny, multi-colored weevil found in New Guinea: Udo Schmidt from Deutschland, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons We told you it was a beaut! New…
From across the forests and savannas, mountains, oceans, and skies of the world, welcome to a celebration of the animals that you know and love – it’s the … It’s the largest living bird in the world and it’s perching here now – welcome the…