Foxes are mammals that look like small, bushy-tailed dogs. They live all over the world. The red fox likes farmland, the gray fox – forests, the silver fox – cold areas, and the Arctic fox lives around the North Pole.
Foxes are about 81 to 145 centimeters long, including the tail. They usually weigh 3 to 8 kilograms. They have long fur that varies in color: reddish brown, black with gray-tipped hair, brownish, white.
Foxes usually live in dens. Most of them hide by day and hunt by night. They eat almost anything: birds, including chickens, small mammals, and rodents.
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Iguanas are reptiles that belong to a large family of lizards. Most species of iguana live in the Americas. The best-known kind is the common, or green, iguana. It is found from Mexico south to Brazil. Some kinds of iguana live on the Galapagos Islands. The males are larger than females and grow up to 2 meters long and weigh up to 6 kilograms.
Iguanas are well equipped for speed and climbing with four powerful legs, each with five long thin toes tipped with strong claws.
Iguanas eat leaves, fruits, insects, small mammals, and birds. The marine iguana of the Galapagos Islands eats seaweed.
They live in trees, holes, burrows, and among rocks.
Iguanas are assigned to seven genera, their common names being banded iguanas, land iguanas, spiny-tailed iguanas, ground iguanas, desert iguanas, green iguanas, marine iguanas and chuckwallas.
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Flying fish is a unique fish. They do not actually fly by flapping wings, like birds do. Instead, they jump from the water and use their fins to glide through the air. They live in warm seas throughout the world. There are about 40 different species. They are close relatives of the needlefish, halfbeaks, and sauries.
These fishes are usually less than 45 centimeters long and are deep blue on the back and sides and silvery underneath. Their pectoral fins are almost as long as the body and serve as wings. The tail fin may vibrate as rapidly as 50 times per second and by these movements the fish may make several thrusts into the air in rapid succession.
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Antelopes are plant-eating mammals. The impala, the addax, gazelles, gnus, and kudus are all antelopes. They live on the large, grassy plains of Africa and in the central and southwestern regions of Europe and Asia. There are many different kinds of antelope.
They have hooves and are generally about the same size as most goats and deer. Their coats are golden, reddish tan, or gray. Antelopes have excellent senses of smell and hearing. The impala can make leaps as long as 9 meters. Antelopes can run up to 80 kilometers per hour.
They feed on young green leaves, fruit, and buds.
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Bison has a massive body, humped shoulders, and pointed horns. In winter, its coat is dark brown and in the spring it is light-brown. They are the largest land mammals in North America and Europe. There are two species of bison: the American bison and the European bison.
An average bison has a head and body length of 2.1 to 3.8 meters and a shoulder height of 1.5 to 2 meters. It weighs between 320 and 1,000 kilograms.
The American bison is commonly known as the buffalo. European bison is often called wisent, from the German word for bison. They are slightly larger than the American bison. European bison live in forests where they eat tender shoots, twigs, and leaves of trees and bushes.
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Magpies are intelligent, noisy birds. They belong to songbirds. Magpies are in the same scientific family as crows, ravens, and jays. Magpies live in Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America.
There are several different species of magpie. Common types include the Eurasian magpie and the black-billed magpie.
Eurasian and black-billed magpies are about 46 centimeters long. The tail is longer than the body. They are mostly black except for their white bellies and white patches on their wings. Magpies in Asia have bright blue or green feathers.
They are omnivorous and eat insects, dead animals, fruit, seeds, and even the eggs and chicks of other birds.
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Once a species becomes extinct, it is gone forever. The most common cause of extinction is a sudden, serious change in a species’ habitat. Floods, fires, droughts, volcanoes, and other natural events may be causes. People also change the environment: clear forests and drain wetlands, build cities on land that animals need to survive and create harmful pollution. Some species have been hunted to extinction.
Dinosaurs first appeared on Earth about 215 million years ago. By 65 million years ago, however, they had died out. Many scientists believe that a large asteroid caused this mass extinction. It hit Earth and thick dust blocked the sun. The dinosaurs could not survive the cold temperatures. But early species of birds and mammals did survive.
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