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The ostrich is the tallest and the heaviest of all birds. While the huge ostrich is a bird, it does not fly. Instead it runs. One stride can cover up to 16 feet (4.9 meters)—about the length of a mid-size family car! The bird is speedy, too. It can run just over 40 miles (64 kilometers) an hour for a short distance, and can keep up a speed of more than 30 miles (48 kilometers) an hour over longer distances. The ostrich uses its short wings for balance, holding them outstretched when it runs. Strong legs can also be used for self-defense. An ostrich will kick with a force mighty enough to kill a lion. When danger approaches, an ostrich will often lie low to hide, stretching its neck along the ground. Its feather colors blend with the sandy soil where it lives. From far away, it looks like the ostrich has buried its head in the sand. Many people thought that was what ostriches did when they were trying to hide, but that is a myth. Ostriches live near grazing animals such as wildebeest, antelopes, and zebras. The grazers stir up insects and rodents for the ostriches to eat, and the ostriches warn the grazers to dangers such as approaching lions. An ostrich group, called a herd, numbers about 12 individuals. Male ostriches compete for control of a group of several females. A herd has a dominant male and a dominant female. She mates only with him, though he may mate with other females as well. All the egg-laying females, called hens, lay their eggs in the nest of the dominant female. Then that female—whose eggs are positioned in the center of the nest, the most well-protected spot—and her mate take care of all the eggs in that one nest. Each egg can be up to 6 inches (15 centimeters) long and weigh 3 pounds (1.5 kilograms)!
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Legal Terms of Use Privacy Policy Your California Privacy Rights Children’s Online

You can boil them, bake them, deep-freeze them, crush them, dehydrate them, or even blast them into space. It doesn’t matter—tardigrades can survive practically anything. These eight-legged aquatic animals may be small, but they’re nearly indestructible.
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Female black widows are shiny black, with a red-orange hourglass pattern on their abdomen. Male black widows are not black, but brown or gray with small red spots. Black widows are poisonous arachnids—animals that have a skeleton outside their body, a segmented body, and eight jointed legs. They are not insects. Their deadly poison is said to be 15 times stronger than rattlesnake venom. Black widows use a silk-like substance to weave tangled-looking webs, typically close to the ground in covered or dark places, such as near drain pipes or under logs. The female hangs upside down in the web to await her prey, exposing her bright markings as a warning to potential predators. The black widow senses vibrations to the web. When an unlucky intruder gets trapped, the spider immediately begins weaving its glue-like webbing around it. Insects such as flies, mosquitoes, or even larger prey like grasshoppers are typically caught. Once captured, the black widow injects its victims with poison, paralyzing them. The tips of the black widow’s legs are coated with an oily substance that prevents the black widow from getting caught in its own web. Adult male and female black widows live solitary lives, meeting only to breed. The female black widow lays approximately 200 eggs. The eggs incubate for some 20 days in a small, round papery sac that’s attached to the mother’s web. After hatching, the baby spiders stay in the cocoon for up to one month. Three species of poisonous North American spiders carry the common name black widow under the genus Latrodectus. Each species occupies a distinct region of North America, as their names suggest: Eastern black widows (L. mactans), northern black widows (L. variolus), and western black widows (L. hesperus). These three species have very similar physical and behavioral characteristics. The name “black widow” comes from the female’s habit of eating the male after mating.

 The female black widow is approximately 1.5 inches (38 millimeters) long. The male is about half the female’s size.

 The black widow is prey for birds and other spiders. Although poisonous, the black widow is not considered aggressive unless threatened. In fact, the male black widow is reclusive and hardly ever seen by humans. While the black widow’s poison is rarely fatal to humans, it can cause severe pain and nausea.
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It’s a quiet, warm summer evening with no human in sight for miles in the woods. As the sun sets, tiny flashes of light start to flicker throughout the trees. At first there’s just a few, but soon hundreds of blinking lights are floating in the forest. Fireflies have come out for the evening.
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Secret Life of the Serengeti
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Fastest mammal on land, the cheetah can reach speeds of 60 or perhaps even 70 miles (97 or 113 kilometers) an hour over short distances. It usually chases its prey at only about half that speed, however. After a chase, a cheetah needs half an hour to catch its breath before it can eat. The cheetah’s excellent eyesight helps it find prey during the day. The cheetah is hard to see because its spotted coat blends with the tall, dry grass of the plains. Suddenly, the cheetah makes a lightning dash. It knocks its prey to the ground and then bites its throat. Once found throughout Asia and Africa, cheetahs today are racing toward extinction. Loss of habitat and declining numbers of their prey combine to threaten the future of these cats. Cheetahs live and hunt mainly in open grasslands and bushy areas in parts of Africa and the Middle East. Cheetahs eat small- to medium-size animals, such as hares, impalas, wildebeest calves, and gazelles. Because of their size, strength, and predatory skills, cheetahs are considered one of the “big cats.â€� Tigers, lions, leopards, jaguars, and cougars are also part of this grouping. Take the big cat quiz to see how much you know about these fierce felines. Then, just for fun, see which wild cat you’re most like with our personality quiz.
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When you see a snowy owl, it’s clear how the bird probably got its name: they’re snow-white. Males are generally whiter than females. As males grow older, they get whiter. The females never become completely white—remaining brownish with darker markings. These large owls mainly live in the Arctic in open, treeless areas called tundra. Snowy owls perch on the ground or on short posts. From there they patiently watch for prey. Their favorite target is lemmings—small mouselike rodents—but they also hunt for other small rodents, rabbits, birds, and fish. Snowy owls have excellent eyesight, but they obviously can’t see their prey when it’s underneath snow or a thick layer of plants. To capture those meals, the owl relies on its other keen sense: hearing. In flight, snowy owls generally cruise low to the ground. Once they spot their prey, they approach it from the air, and snatch it up using the large, sharp talons, or claws, on their feet. Most owls sleep during the day and hunt at night, but the snowy owl is active during the day, especially in the summertime. They tend to be most active at dawn and dusk. Snowy owl pairs usually mate for life. Female snowy owls lay from 3 to 11 eggs at a time, in a nest built on the ground. When there is plenty of food available, snowy owls tend to lay more eggs than when food is scarce. Lemmings make up the main part of the snowy owls‘ diet, and lemming population numbers rise and fall naturally. Sometimes, if there is not enough prey around to feed baby owls, the adult pair won’t lay any eggs at all until the supply of food improves. The female snowy owl sits on her eggs until they hatch. The male feeds her while she keeps their eggs warm and safe. After about one month, the eggs hatch. Babies are covered in soft white down when they hatch. As new feathers replace the down, the birds become light brown. The young leave the nest less than a month after they hatch. By the time they’re about a month and a half old, the young owls can fly well, but their parents take care of them for another ten weeks or more.
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Atlantic puffins are birds that live at sea most of their lives. They fly through the air like most birds, but they also „fly“ through the water, using their wings as paddles. As they swim, they use their webbed feet to steer, much as a boat uses a rudder.  Puffins eat small fish—such as sand eels and herring—which they hunt underwater. They generally stay underwater for 30 seconds or less, but are able to dive 200 feet deep and stay down for up to a minute. Well adapted for their home in the water, puffins are also speedy in the air. They flap their wings up to 400 times a minute, speeding along in the air at 55 miles an hour—as fast as a car on a highway (How many times can you flap your arms in one minute?) . As a puffin matures, its beak and feet change from a dull gray color to bright orange. In the spring and summer, thousands of puffins gather in colonies on the coasts and islands of the North Atlantic Ocean. They stay in colonies to limit their chances of being eaten by the herring gulls that fly overhead. At the ages of 4-6, pairs of puffins often become mates for life, finding each other at their breeding colony year after year. They show affection by rubbing and tapping beaks. The pair often uses the same burrow they used the year before. Using their beaks and claws, puffins build their burrows between two boulders or in a rocky crevice. They line the burrow with feathers and grass before laying the egg that will incubate for 42 days. A baby puffin is known as a chick or puffling. When it first hatches, it looks like a furry ball of feathers. As it gets older, it will grow sturdy and smooth feathers to help it swim and fly. Born on North Atlantic islands, pufflings leave their burrows after 45 days. They won’t return until it is their turn to lay eggs. A puffling eats so much food that both the mother and father have to supply it with fish. In one day a parent may dive 276 times, bringing back 10 fish each time. The puffling swallows the fish head first and whole. By the time the puffling leaves its burrow, each parent will have dove 12,420 times. Check out the book Penguins vs. Puffins for more about these amazing birds!
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Discover the kind of engineering involved in designing pop-ups!
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