Although the koala is often called a “koala bear” it is not a member of the bear family. It is a marsupial—an animal related to wombats, opossums, and kangaroos. It is found only in Australia.
Koalas are small and round, with little eyes and a big black nose. They have no tail. Adults range from about 61 to 90 centimeters in length and weigh about 4.5 to 13.5 kilograms. Males are much larger than females. Their fur acts as a rain repellant and provides warmth. Koalas are arboreal and nocturnal.
They have a keen sense of balance and are very muscular. Koalas climb by means of their large hands and feet, which are equipped with long, strong, curved claws.
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Elms are trees of flowering plants in the genus Ulmus. Large numbers of elms used to grow in cities. During the 1900s, however, a disease killed many elms. There are about 30 species of elms in the world. Most occur in north temperate regions of North America, Europe, and Asia, and on mountains of tropical Asia. North American elms include the American elm; the slippery, or red, elm; the rock, or cork, elm; the winged, or wahoo, elm; and the cedar elm. The English elm and the Wych elm are European species. Asian elms include the Siberian elm and the Chinese elm.
Elms are often about 15 to 21 meters tall. But some types may grow higher than 30 meters. The leaves of elms have jagged edges. Elms flower in the spring. The flowers grow in clusters and do not have petals. The fruits, called samaras, are flat disks that each hold one seed.
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Understanding that the river is life comes when a meeting with it took place. Contact with living water sometimes changes the inner world of a person. It turns a skeptic into romantic, a physicist into a lyricist, a sober pragmatist into an artist. The river attracts not only residents of nearby settlements – hundreds of townspeople count the days before the holidays, in order to live a little in the wonderful world of rivers. The rivers give life, all early settlements were founded near rivers, and they also took lives, just think of floods and drowned people.
Rivers … They were before us, and after us they continue their run, competing with the run of time. And there will be life on their shores and in their waters. I want all our children and grandchildren to see it and realize that no virtual world will replace the real earthly beauty granted to us.
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The coyote is a wild member of the dog family. The name coyote comes from the Aztec name Coyoti. The Latin name for the coyote is Canis latrans which means barking dog. The coyote is sometimes called the little wolf God’s Dog, brush wolf, prairie wolf, and the Songdog.
It is known for its cleverness and its nighttime howls. They live throughout the continental United States.
Coyotes are similar to wolves, but they are smaller and more lightly built. Most adult coyotes weigh 9-23 kilograms and are 1-1.2 meters long, including the tail. Most coyotes are grayish brown with white on the throat and belly. Coyote fur is long and soft and grows heavier in the winter to protect it from the cold.
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Corn, or maize, is one of the most widely grown food plants in the world. People eat the plant’s seeds, which are called kernels or grains. Corn belongs to the grass family. Its scientific name is Zea mays.
Mayan farmers of Mexico and Central America cultivated corn. Early European explorers of the Americas took corn back with them to Europe. Today corn is grown on every continent except Antarctica. Corn grows in areas that have rich soil and cold nights but no frost during the growing season.
The corn plant has a stout stem with a tassel at the top. Its leaves are large and narrow. Spikes grow from under the bases of the leaves and develop into ears. Leaves called shucks or husks surround each ear.
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In those distant times when the alarm clocks were in huge deficit, the workers woke up in the morning with the buzz of their factories, the peasants – with the roosters crowing. But the Australian aborigines understood that a new day had come thanks to kookaburra laughter.
Actually, kookaburra is a bird from the family of kingfishers. It lives exclusively in Australia and New Guinea, and does not make long flights.
It sleeps at night and gets food as much as it can. These birds eat lizards, insects, snakes and all sorts of rodents. When there is not enough food it can steal chicks.
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Muskrats are rodents that look like a cross between a rat and a beaver. They live in water. The animal has two musk glands under its tail. It produces a strong odor that smells like musk. Muskrats were originally found only in North America. People took them to Europe and Asia in the early 1900s. The scientific name of the muskrat is Ondatra zibethicus.
Muskrats build their houses in water, using mud, cattails, and other plants. These structures are typically more than one meter high and several meters broad. Muskrats dig narrow channels through the surrounding plant growth.
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