Interesting facts about dogs

Throughout centuries man and dog lived side by side. Dogs were popular in ancient Greece, Rome and Egypt. Pharaohs’ dogs were mummified and buried together with their masters in pyramids. In fact man-dog companionship had begun long before that. Some scientists say that domestic dogs appeared about 12,000 years ago and that they were derived directly from wolves.
People quickly understood that dogs could be used to guard, herd and hunt. To this day many breeds are used for these purposes.
Besides these traditional occupations, dogs can work in many other fields. Newfoundland is an excellent swimmer and is good at rescue work at sea. Huge St Bernard is trained to find people lost in the mountains under the snow. A St Bernard named Barry saved forty people during his twelve years of work. The elegant Dalmatian accompanied horse-driven carriages. Long ago, when fire brigades drove horses, they also took Dalmatians with them and up to our days Dalmatian is the mascot of firemen.
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Some facts about lemurs

Lemurs are amazing and unusual creatures.
The word lemur comes from the Latin word meaning “a ghost”. Perhaps this is because they move about silently at night and have large mysterious eyes. In the 16th century Europeans first landed on the island of Madagascar, where they met funny little animals with eyes glowing in the dark. The Europeans remembered of the ancient Roman beliefs and animals were called lemurs.
Lemurs live only in two places: Madagascar and the nearby Comoro Islands.
Some people think that lemurs are related to squirrels or cats. But they are primates and more closely related to humans.
There are more than 60 species of lemurs. The smallest species weighs only 30 grams. The largest species weighs 10 kilograms.
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Dingo

The dingo looks like a small wolf. It has strong legs and body, a long muzzle, ears, pointed at the tips and a bushy tail. This animal is about 50 centimeters high. The dingo is reddish in color and often has white paws and white tip of the tail. Black and cream dingoes also occur. Dingoes do not bark in the wild, they yelp and howl. They are clever and cunning animals.
The dingo is the only large mammal native to Australia that is not a marsupial. It is believed that the dingo didn’t originate in Australia. Some scientists say that the dingo came to Australia more than 3,500 years ago with Asian settlers.
Dingoes are very good at hunting. They can hunt anything from kangaroos to rabbits and lizards. But their main food is sheep, because it’s easy to hunt them. But even being hungry, a wild dingo has never been known to attack a human.
In daytime dingoes sleep or hide. At night they come out and look for food.
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Amazing Lizards

There are almost 3,000 kinds of lizards. They come in many colors, shapes and sizes. And they do a lot of odd things. The smallest lizards are only a few centimeters long. The largest living lizard is the Komodo dragon which can reach 3 meters long and may weigh nearly 140 kilograms.
Of all the lizards only two kinds are venomous. These dangerous reptiles are the Gila monster of the American deserts and its cousin, the Mexican beaded lizard. When the sun goes down the Gila monster hunts for eggs and helpless baby animals.
The most remarkable thing about lizards is the variety of ways by which they move. More than 60 million years ago, huge lizards – mosasaurs swam in the sea. Flying dragons can glide from tree to tree like birds. Geckos have special pads on their feet which enable them to run up walls, across glass windows, or to hang from the ceilings like flies.
Skinks look like snakes, they have no legs at all. But skinks have ears and eyelids. They have one of the most unusual methods of defense. Its bright blue tail is twice as long as its body. If an enemy seizes its tail, the skink simply breaks it off. The tail keeps wriggling as though it was alive, fooling the enemy that struggles with it.
Basilisks can walk on water and swim. Its long, strong tail helps to keep its balance.
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The African Giant

The elephant is the largest animal that lives on land. Only some kinds of whales are larger. A male African elephant can be four meters tall and can weigh six tons. The female is smaller. They have the largest ears and teeth (their tusks) among animals.
A trunk is very useful: it can uproot a heavy tree and it can also pick a grape without breaking it. An elephant can smell, touch, stroke, feed, drink and take a shower with its trunk. The trunk has about 40,000 muscles and it never stops growing and can be more than three meters long.
The elephant is a vegetarian. It eats grass, green leaves, and parts of young trees and bushes. It can eat 300-400 kilos a day and drink 150-200 liters of water.
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Cat and Parrot

Too often we erect barriers guided by stereotypes and prejudices. If we put aside all unnecessary things, there would be much more warmth, friendship and love in the world.

The tale about friendship between the kitten and the mouse
In one city, in one of the apartments little mouse Manya lived. She lived there for a long time and remembered all its residents. One came, others left, and almost every family had a cat who was trying to catch her. Manya was a very lucky mouse. She ran away and hid herself in her nice, clean and warm burrow. There she had many different and useful things.
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Simply Spiders

Most people are afraid of spiders and find them disgusting. However, there are people who find them fascinating and even keep them as pets.
Spiders are creepy and crawly. They eat flies, crickets, woodlice and centipedes. Larger species, such as the tarantulas, can catch and kill birds, lizards and snakes.
There are over 40,000 different species of spider. Many people think they are insects, but they are NOT. Spiders are arachnids! Insects have six legs, and arachnids have eight. Arachnids also have a two-part body and two pinchers. They don’t have antennae, but instead have bristly hairs on their body and legs, which are used to pick up signals and messages — spider can taste things with its feet!
They live everywhere, from the tops of mountains to the bottoms of caves.
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