Category Kids Queries

Kangaroos (along with koalas, opossums, and Tasmanian devils) are marsupials, a type of mammal that nurtures its defenseless newborns in a pouch outside its body. While other types of mammals (known as placental mammals) grow their offspring inside the womb, marsupials give birth relatively early and continue their pregnancies in their pouches. The pouch fulfills all the life-support functions of the womb until the baby kangaroo (called a joey) is ready to hop on its own two feet. Sometimes, older and younger joeys will squeeze into the same pouch. Bet you’ll never complain about your room being cramped again.

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Although wolves are social animals that like to live in happy pack families, some wander the wilderness without ever finding a mate, while others lose their pack members to tragic fates. These lone wolves face many hardships not experienced by those living in packs. Unable to use teamwork to bring down large animals, they must settle for easier-to-kill prey such as birds, beavers, and rodents – mere morsels compared with typical pack feasts. Wherever they wander, lone wolves have to be extra wary: They risk a vicious attack if they enter another pack’s territory.

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A wolf pack relies on teamwork to hunt prey and defend its territory. By working together, a pack can take down much larger animals. And nothing builds team spirit like a good group howl, one of nature’s most haunting sounds. Wolves howl in a chorus often: when they wake up, before a hunt, perhaps even for fun. Audible up to ten miles (16 km) away in the right terrain, a howl also functions as the pack’s long-distance phone service. Wolves will howl to call members to a meeting site, warn of danger to the pups, or tell neighboring packs to keep off their land.

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Of all the cats, lions and tigers produce the loudest roars – loud enough to rattle the suspension of any nearby vehicles. Fatty folds in the throats of these big cats vibrate to create and amplify that sandpapery roaring sound with just a little bit of air pressure from the lungs. Leopards and jaguars – the only other cats that can roar – also have these folds.

The cats are also aided by the strength of their vocal folds, which can withstand stretching and shearing as air moves past them and the folds vibrate. The size of the animal or the vocal fold, or the frequency of the sound, didn’t matter. Elk have vocal folds about the same size, but they make high-pitched sounds. And humans speak in a range of sound frequencies similar to those of lions’ and tigers’ roars, but obviously our voices are much softer.
 

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Because they have something important to say, and they want every animal within five miles (8 km) – the range of a lion’s roar – to get the message. The sole social members of the feline family, lions roar to communicate with the rest of their pack (called a pride). A male lion on patrol will roar to let the females (called lionesses) know that the pride’s territory is free from rogue lions (or lions without a pride), or he might roar to tell other lions to keep their distance. Although not as loud as lions, lionesses roar to call their cubs home or shout for help in the hunt. Tigers, which are solitary animals like all other cats, unleash their roars to convey a simpler message. Keep out of my territory.

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Bats aren’t strong enough to take off from the ground like birds. By hanging upside down, they can drop right into the air and start flying. High-up tree branches and other roosting spots also give bats a place to hide from predators during a day. Unlike your hands (which require muscle power to hold a tight grip), bats’ feet close automatically on branches the instant they start hanging upside down.

By hanging out where few animals would think to look — and most can’t reach anyway — bats can enjoy a safe snooze. You might think bats would have competition from birds and other flying creatures, but the places where bats roost are not typically areas where it would be possible for birds to build a nest.

Bats have developed a special adaptation that makes sleeping upside-down as easy and effortless as sleeping in a bed is for humans. If you clench your fist around a baseball, your body uses muscles and tendons in your fingers, arms, wrists and hand. As the muscles in your arms contract, they pull on tendons, closing your fingers around the ball.

Picture Credit : Google