zack the monkey

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Zack the Monkey

Do you see the monkeys in the tree? There is

a mother, a father, and a baby. The baby’s name is Zack. Zack loves to play. Zack is small, but he has lots of fun.

Zack loves to climb trees. Then he likes to swing down. He swings with his hands. He swings with his tail.


Zack also likes to eat. He likes to eat bugs. He likes to eat nuts. He looks for bugs and nuts in the trees.

Zack goes home at night. His mother gives him a bath. She rubs his back. Then Zack goes to sleep. Tree leaves are a good bed for a monkey.


Dressed for Winter

Ann and Sam look out the window. They see snow! They love snow and want to play. It is winter, so Ann and Sam must wear warm clothes. First, they put on a coat and a hat. Then they put on boots. Now they are dressed for snow!

Ann’s dog Jake is dressed for snow, too. Jake does not wear a real coat. His coat is made of fur. In cold months, Jake’s fur gets very thick. This thick fur is called a winter coat. Many

animals grow winter coats. Rabbits, bear, and deer grow coats.


Other animals get dressed for the cold. Foxes wrap their tails around their heads. Their tails work like hats. Birds grow feathers on their feet. These feathers work like boots. Like Ann and Sam, animals get dressed for winter. They want to stay warm in the snow.


People who live in the city love bright lights. They love the sound of car horns honking and

train bells ringing. They call these sounds the music of the city. People living in the country have music, too. Birds sing at breakfast, dogs bark in the afternoon, and frogs croak loudly by the stream after dinner.

Children love to go to the stream. They enjoy watching the tadpoles grow into frogs. At the beginning of the summer, frogs lay their eggs. The eggs look like tiny balls of jelly. After three weeks, the tadpoles leave their eggs. They stick to weeds in the stream and try to hide from hungry

fish. In the next few weeks, the tadpoles grow big and break free. They start to swim this way and that.

Country Music


In five weeks, the tadpoles start changing. First they grow legs, and then they lose their tails. Now they are frogs! They can swim in the water

or hop on land. The children love to try to catch them. The frogs can croak loudly now, too. The children love listening to the country music. It sounds beautiful, and it makes it easy to find a new pet.


Ocean Cities

Go anywhere in the world and you will find

cities. In cities, there are many buildings where countless people live and work. Some people are carpenters and police officers. Some are cleaners and water workers. There are many types of workers in cities, and all of them are needed. Without carpenters, there would be no homes or offices. Without water workers, there would be no clean water to drink. The same is true in the cities of the ocean.

In warm parts of the ocean, there are cities where many plants and animals live and work. Of

course, they are not real cities. They are habitats called coral reefs. Lots of animals live in the reef since the water is clear. It is not deep, so it is warm from the sun, too.


Just like the workers in a city, reef animals have different jobs. Coral polyps are the carpenters. The hard shells that polyps build as homes become houses for other animals. Crabs are the police officers. They use their sharp claws to chase off hungry hunters. Gobies and shrimp are the cleaners. They keep the reef in good health when they clean the skin and teeth of reef

animals. Clams are the water workers. They eat food crumbs in the water and keep it clear.

As in the city, each job is important to the life of the coral reef!


Animal Forecasters

Before we go out, most of us watch the news. At the news station, men and women called meteorologists study the weather. Meteorologists have the tough job of telling us how hot or cold it will be. They can tell us how much rain or snow will fall, too.

Although meteorologists have this information, not all people watch the news for the weather report. For hundreds of years, people have used animals to predict the weather. Today, some still look to animals for the weather.

For example, some people predict the weather using the stripes of an Isabella tiger moth caterpillar. Thick brown stripes predict that winter will be mild. Thin brown stripes warn that winter will be harsh. Other people measure how high wasps build their nests. The higher the nest, the harsher the winter will be. Still others look to cows. When cows lie down and will not get up, it means that rain will come.


Scientists who study weather don’t think these methods are very accurate. These scientists point out that there is no proof to show they work, so they use computers instead. These computers get information from small boxes all over the world. These small boxes have instruments that measure temperature. They have instruments that measure air pressure and moisture in the air, too. First, the small boxes collect this information. Then, they send radio signals to the local news station. At the news station, computers make weather maps. Meteorologists read the maps to make weather predictions.

Computers are right most of the time. However, they do not always make accurate predictions. As long as computers are not always right, some people will use cows and wasps to predict the weather.


Miniature Marvels

For some people, insects are a good thing. Honeybees make the honey used to make sweet treats. Silkworms make the fiber used to make beautiful clothes. But insects also eat gardens, infest houses, and bite arms and legs. Because of this, some people find it hard to see the good insects do. They use sprays and traps to rid the Earth of its insects. In spite of these sprays and traps, insects are here to stay. They are such great survivors because of the physical traits they all share.

Insects, like other invertebrates, do not have a skeleton like we do. Instead, insects have an exoskeleton. The exoskeleton is like a suit of armor that gives them their shape. Since it is so strong, insects can carry heavy loads. Since it is so hard, insects are safe from everyday accidents that might crush them. Their small size also helps them to survive. Since they are much smaller than other animals, they need fewer resources to live. A small crumb is a filling dinner, and a dew drop is a pleasing drink. A small hole in a tree branch is a refuge from a hungry hunter.


Insects are able to adapt well to their environment, too. Some insects adapt to blend in and hide from hunters, just like the flat bark bug whose body looks like a piece of gray tree bark. Other insects adapt to help them work. For example, insects that live under the ground have front legs that work like tiny shovels to help them dig.

With such adaptations, insects have survived the freezing cold and the hot desert, as well as human efforts to make this a bug-free planet. Insects are miniature marvels.


Space Dogs

Man’s best friend is known to do a lot of things. He sniffs trails, finds lost items, and saves lives. In the science world, dogs are known to have been the first explorers in outer space! Yes, dogs voyaged into space long before humans did.

In the 1940s and 1950s, planes became very popular. Naturally, scientists started to think about the future of flight. They turned their eyes to the night sky and dreamed of space exploration. However, scientists did not know much about outer space and did not want to send humans into the unknown. So, scientists decided that to study the risks of space travel, they would use animals. In Russia, the first animals in space were dogs. Scientists hoped that their ‘‘space dogs’’ could give them information on how humans might react to low gravity and high pressures.

In 1957, a dog named Laika became the first living creature to enter the Earth’s orbit. Laika was the sole passenger on the small Russian craft, Sputnik. While she was on Sputnik, Russian scientists monitored her life signs with special tools. Scientists looked at how much air she breathed and how quickly her heart was beating. They also regularly measured Laika’s blood pressure.


The information that scientists collected from Laika’s flight was important because it allowed Russian scientists to design space suits to protect their cosmonauts, or space travelers. It also helped them to design a space craft for one of their cosmonauts. On April 12, 1961, that space craft transported the first human into outer space.

Even today, there are many questions that remain about space travel. However, other animals, like crickets, spiders, fish, and mice make the trip into outer space these days. While scientists work with these animals, man’s best friend stays safe at home.


Sharks

Sharks are some of the most fascinating creatures in the sea. They can be found in all of the Earth's oceans, and about 440 different types have been identified. Although most sharks live strictly in salt water, some species move between saltwater and freshwater areas.

The great white shark is probably the most well-known type of shark. Popular books and movies often portray these sharks as vicious man-eaters. Humans are not the preferred prey of this shark after all. Great white sharks prey on seals, sea lions, small whales, and even sea turtles. To hone in on their prey, sharks use a keen sense of smell. Furthermore, sharks can sense energy created by nearby animals which alerts them to the possibility of a food source.

A great white shark has an enormous mouth with nearly 300 serrated teeth. Their teeth are lost and replaced constantly over the course of their lives. As a consequence, many sharks lose 30,000 or more teeth in the course of their lifetime! If you have ever collected shells at the beach, you may have found a shark's tooth among the shells.

Sharks have many interesting physiological traits. Foremost, the shark is considered a type of fish because it has a backbone and uses gill slits to breathe in the water. Because sharks must keep water moving over their gills to ensure a constant supply of oxygen, they often swim with their mouths open. Another interesting trait of sharks is their endoskeleton, which is composed of cartilage instead of bones. Because cartilage creates a lighter weight for the sharks, they can move more easily through the water. Lastly, the fins on sharks act as stabilizers while their tails can drive them at speeds well over 15 miles per hour. These traits make them one of the fastest predatory fish on Earth.


Tornados

A tornado is defined as follows: a twisting column of air extending from a thunderstorm to the ground. The formation of a tornado depends on the air flow pattern of the storm. If the air flow pattern is one of spiraling winds, it can spin water vapor into a funnel shape, or vortex. As the vortex spins down to the ground, it picks up debris and therefore becomes more visible.

Not all storms have the right conditions to produce a tornado. Supercells, which are severe storms with high concentrations of energy, cause most tornados. Supercells are most likely to form in areas where winds are coming from different directions at many levels. A large supercell can cause problems in a few ways. It can create tornados that last for several days as well as create two or more tornados simultaneously.

The force of tornado winds can cause a long path of damage more than 1 mile wide and 50 miles long. These tornado winds, which can carry huge objects for miles, are the strongest winds on Earth. For example, strong tornado winds from Oklahoma once carried a motel sign 30 miles and then dropped it in Arkansas. Even cars, trees, and entire houses have been lifted off the ground from the force of tornados.

Scientists who study tornados rely on radar to provide data about the storms. Across the country, scientists from the National Weather Service are installing Doppler radars that can detect air movement. By detecting increasing air movement during a storm, scientists will have more time to issue warnings before a tornado forms. When a tornado warning is issued in an area, many homes and schools already have safety plans prepared. As a rule, these safety plans include moving to a protected underground shelter like a basement. It is a good idea for families and schools to practice their safety plans regularly so each person knows what to do in the unlikely event that a tornado approaches.

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