Category Zoology

The basilisk lizard escapes from enemies by running across the water. It runs so fast on its long, fringed back toes that it doesn’t have time to sink. The lizard lives by rivers in South American forests.

Who walks upside down?

Geckos can run up smooth walls and walk upside down across ceilings. They have special suction pads on their feet which allow them to cling on. The pads are covered in thousands of tiny hairs which help the geckos to grip the tiniest bumps and dips.

Is it true? Dragons can fly.

Yes. Flying dragons are small lizards. To travel through the trees, they take to the air. They glide from branch to branch on special ‘wings’. These are flaps of skin stretched over very long ribs which stick out from the sides of their body.

Amazing! Tortoises are real slow-coaches. Their heavy shells weigh them down so much that they move about very slowly, or not at all. Most tortoises lumber along at speeds of less than 0.5 kph, even when they’re hungry.

Which lizard runs the fastest?

The speediest lizard is the spiny-tailed iguana. It can speed along at almost 35 kph, about the same speed as a champion sprinter. In an experiment, a racetrack was set up and the lizards were timed with the same devices used at the Olympic Games.

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The largest snack ever eaten by a snake was an impala antelope. It was devoured by an African rock python. The snake didn’t chew its enormous meal into pieces. It swallowed the impala whole!

Which snake squeezes its prey to death?

A boa constrictor holds its prey in its teeth, and then wraps its coils tightly around it. The snake does not crush its victim to death but squeezes it until it suffocates.

Is it true? A snake can go for more than three years without food.

Yes. It can take snake weeks to digest a large meal. So they don’t need to eat very often. A pit viper once survived without food for three years, three months a world record.

Amazing! There are many scary stories of snakes swallowing people. But only a few of them are true. In 1979, a young boy in South Africa was seized by a 4.5 metre-long African rock python. His friends ran off to get help. When they came back about 20 minutes later, the snake had swallowed the boy whole.

Why do snakes have elastic jaws?

A snake has sharp, backward-pointing teeth. Its teeth are good at holding food but can’t bite it into chunks. Instead, snakes swallow their prey whole. Snakes have amazingly stretchy jaws, with elastic-like hinges between their jawbones. This means they can open their mouths very wide, to swallow food larger than the size of their heads, such as eggs.

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Some of the deadliest land snakes live in Australia. A drop of their poison could kill 250,000, mice. Other highly dangerous snakes include cobras, rattlesnakes, and taipans, which can grow to 3.5 metres long.

Which snake spits poison?

One type of cobra spits poison in its enemies’ faces, blinding the victim! Spitting cobras have verb good aims. They can hit a target more than two metres away.

Amazing! Fer-de-lance snakes have massive fangs and are deadly poisonous. They prey on rats and mice. Explorers claimed that local hunters in South America put these lethal snakes in tubes and fired them at their enemies.

Is it true? All lizards are poisonous.

No. Of the 3,800 different kinds of lizards, only two are poisonous. They are the gila monster and the Mexican beaded lizard. These lizards do not have fangs but bite their victims and chew poison into the wound instead.

Which snake has the longest fangs?

The deadly gaboon viper from Africa has fangs which grow up to five centimetres, as long as your little fingers! When they’re not in use, they’re folded back against the roof of the viper’s mouth.

Reptiles are a group of animals which includes snakes, lizards, turtles, tortoises, alligators and crocodiles. They are all vertebrates (they have bones and skeletons inside their bodies), they breathe air and most of them live on land. Their skins are scaly to stop their bodies drying out.

Amazing! Lizards love sunbathing. All reptiles are cold-blooded. They can’t control their own body temperature but rely on the weather instead. Cold lizards are sluggish and slow. So they warm up in the sun, and then scurry off hunting.

Is it true? Today’s reptiles have famous relatives.

Yes. The relatives of today’s reptiles were the dinosaurs, which ruled the Earth for more than 200 million years. They suddenly died out about 65 million years ago.

Which is the shortest snake?

At only about ten centimetres long, thread snakes are the shortest, thinnest snakes in the world. If you took the lead out of a pencil, they could slither through the hole. These rare snakes live in the West Indies, and eat tiny ants and termites.

Which is the biggest reptile?

The biggest reptiles alive today are saltwater crocodiles. They’re usually about four metres long, but a gigantic crocodile killed in 1957 measured no less than 8.64 metres, and weighed more than two tonnes.

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As a snake grows, its scaly skin gets too small. So the snake grows a new skin underneath, then slithers out of the old one, starting from the head and working down to the tail. A snake sheds its skin in one piece, several times a year.

Is it true? You can tell a tortoise’s age from its shell.

Yes. A tortoise’s shell is made of bone, covered in tough, horny plates. The shell protects the tortoise’s body. But that’s not all it’s good for. Each year, the plates grow a new ring. Count these up, and you can use them to estimate the tortoise’s age.

Which reptile has armour plating?

Alligators and crocodiles are covered in tough, horny scales, strengthened with bone. This waterproof armour stops their bodies drying out in the sun, and protects them from enemies.

Amazing! Geckos have see-through eyelids. These are clear flaps of skin which protect their eyes from dust and dirt. A gecko can’t blink to clean its eyelids. So it sticks out its tongue and licks them clean.

Which snake uses a rattle?

The rattle at the tip of a rattlesnake’s tail is made of hollow scales, loosely linked together. If an enemy gets too close, the rattlesnake shakes its rattle, which makes a loud, angry buzzing sound to scare the attacker away. If this doesn’t work, the rattlesnake coils itself up, then strikes with its poisonous fangs.

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The spiders you see scurrying around your home can be very useful to us. They help get rid of pests, such as flies which carry germs, and there are helpful creepy-crawlies in the garden, too. Hoverflies and ladybirds eat greenfly, and earthworms help improve the soil.

Amazing! Most homes are full of creepy-crawlies, often too small to see without a magnifying glass. Moth larvae eat wool, booklice feed on books, carpet beetles munch carpets, silver fish scuttle under baths, furniture beetles tunnel through furniture, fleas live on cats and dogs, cockroaches lurk behind cookers.

Is it true? Spiders get into the bath by climbing up the drainpipe and through the plug hole.

No. It’s more likely that they fall down the bath’s slippery sides, while roaming around our houses looking for a mate.

Who has been sleeping in my bed?

Dust mites are smaller than a full stop. They live all over the house, but they particularly like beds. Bed bugs are now quite rare, but in some countries they feed on sleeping people.

Who has been in the biscuit tin?

Many creepy-crawlies like to live around food. Cheese mites lay their eggs on cheese. Spider beetles eat spices and sauce mixes. An old bag of flour may contain mites, caterpillars and beetles. Guess what the biscuit beetle prefers? Hard dry ones luckily, not jammy dodgers.

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