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Tarantulas give people the creeps because they have large, hairy bodies and legs. While these large spiders can take a painful bite out of a human, a tarantula’s venom has a low toxicity to people. Tarantulas move slowly on their eight hairy legs, but they are accomplished nocturnal predators. Insects are their main prey, but they also target bigger game, including frogs, toads, and mice. Tarantulas are burrowers and typically live in the ground. There are hundreds of tarantula species found in most of the world’s tropical, subtropical, and desert regions. They vary in color and behavior according to their specific environments. A tarantula doesn’t use a web to trap its prey, though it may spin a trip wire to signal an alert when something approaches its burrow. These spiders grab with their legs, inject paralyzing venom, and then bite their prey with their fangs. They also secrete digestive enzymes to liquefy their victims‘ bodies so that they can suck them up through their strawlike mouth openings. Yum! Tarantulas have few natural enemies, except for the parasitic pepsis wasp, which can paralyze a tarantula with its sting and lay its eggs on the spider’s body. When the wasp eggs hatch, the larvae chow down on the still living tarantula. Tarantulas shed their external skeletons in a process called molting. During the process, they also replace internal organs, such as stomach lining, and can even regrow lost legs.
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This shark’s unusual name comes from the unusual shape of its head, an amazing piece of anatomy built to maximize the fish’s ability to find its favorite meal: stingrays. A hammerhead shark uses its wide head to trap stingrays by pinning them to the seafloor. The shark’s eye placement, on each end of its very wide head, allows it to scan more area more quickly than other sharks can. The hammerhead also has special sensors across its head that helps it scan for food in the ocean. Living creatures‘ bodies give off electrical signals, which are picked up by sensors on the prowling hammerhead. The shark hunts alone, and can find stingrays that hide under the sand on the seafloor. Hammerheads also eat bony fishes, crabs, squid, lobsters, and other sea creatures. The upper sides of these fish are grayish-brown or olive-green and they have white bellies. They have very impressive triangular, serrated teeth—like the edge of a saw’s blade. Hammerheads‘ mouths are on the underside of their heads. Unlike many fish, hammerheads do not lay eggs. A female gives birth to live young. One litter can range from six to about 50 pups. When a hammerhead pup is born, its head is more rounded than its parents‘. There have been very few recorded attacks on people by the great hammerhead.
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Snow leopards are extreme athletes with some wizard-like abilities. Find out more about these big cats’ amazing skills.
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Wrap your head around these awesome facts.
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Temperatures may cool down during the fall season, but the fun is just heating up. Find out why autumn is excellent.
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Space explorers go above and beyond on the job. Here are five cool things about these pioneers.
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A hungry bobcat crouches behind a bush, looking at the field beyond its leafy hideaway. Suddenly, a squirrel darts across the ground. As the squirrel draws near, the cat leaps from the bush and scoops up the prey in its mouth. It’s dinnertime.
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Water quenches your thirst, is fun to play in, and generally keeps us alive. (Yeah, it’s kind of important.) Check out other reasons why you should love this liquid.
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The aardvark gets its name from a South African word meaning “earth pig.” Although the aardvark looks like a pig, especially with its body and snout, aardvarks actually share common ancestors with elephants and golden moles. Aardvarks live throughout much of sub-Saharan Africa. STRONG CLAWS Aardvarks use their large front claws to dig holes at a rate of 2 feet (0.6 meters) in 15 seconds so they can quickly get to their favorite meal: termites and ants. Aardvarks have long, sticky tongues, which can be up to 12 inches (30 centimeters) long. Each night, they are able to dig up termite mounds and ant nests and slurp up and swallow tens of thousands of insects. Aardvarks are most active at night and tend to live alone. During the day, they sleep curled up in a ball in their burrows. As night falls, aardvarks will emerge cautiously from their dens, jumping around on the lookout for predators. They are able to see at night, but otherwise have poor vision and are color-blind. They rely on their senses of sound and smell, using their long ears and snouts to get around and find insects. Female aardvarks give birth in their burrow usually to one baby at a time. A baby aardvark stays in the burrow for two weeks and then begins to venture out to forage at night with its mom. Babies begin digging for their own meals when they reach six months and they grow to full size in about one year. The aardvark’s fast digging skill also helps protect it from predators, such as hyenas and lions. When threatened, an aardvark can dig a hole and cover itself up in about ten minutes. Its large claws are another layer of defense. Though aardvarks remain widespread, humans are the aardvark’s biggest threat. Some landowners don’t like the holes that aardvarks leave behind and kill the aardvarks. The use of pesticides to grow crops on land inhabited by aardvarks has also reduced the number of insects available for aardvarks to eat. Text by Jed Winer/NGS Staff
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A blob the size of a teacup slinks along the ocean floor in the shallow waters off of Australia. It’s a type of sea slug called the nudibranch (NEW-dih-bronk), a slime-oozing creature with a boneless body. Many of them also sport brilliant colors and eye-catching patterns on their skin. In fact this sticky slug is often considered one of the most beautiful animals in the world. IN THE MOOD FOR FOOD Over 3,000 species of nudibranchs exist, and most live in shallow, tropical waters. They can be anywhere from a quarter of an inch to 12 inches long and can weigh up to 3.3 pounds. These sea slugs spend their time sliding on their bellies around their habitat in search of snacks. The animals have a set of curved teeth, which they use to eat coral, sponges, and fish eggs off the ocean floor. Nudibranchs use tentacles on their heads to poke around for grub. TRUE COLORS The nudibranch’s meals don’t just satisfy its hunger—the food also gives the animal its coloring. When the sea slug eats, it absorbs and displays its prey’s pigment—the substance that gives the prey its color. Some nudibranchs also absorb toxins from certain prey and secrete the poison from their own skin. This allows them to fend off enemies such as fish. So the nudibranch is stunning, resourceful, and it recycles? This slug sounds far from sluggish! Text by Andrea Silen / NGS Staff
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