The Caribou

Is that giant, hairy animal with antlers a caribou or a reindeer? Well, they are actually the same animal! These animals are most commonly called caribou in North America, and are called reindeer in Europe and Asia. They are also called reindeer at the North Pole! But caribou and reindeer are the same animal. They live in the northern, snowy tundras of North America, Europe and Asia. 

Caribou have hollow, flat hooves that help support them on the snow. These hooves also act as shovels for digging for food and paddles when swimming across rivers. Unlike other members of the deer family, both male and female caribou have antlers. Females shed their antlers right after having babies and then they grow back. Males use their antlers to compete with other males during the mating season. Caribou have two layers of fur to help them stay warm and dry: a dense woolly undercoat and a long-haired overcoat consisting of hollow, air-filled hair. These large animals can weigh up to 700 pounds and can run up to 50 miles per hour. Caribou are social animals and live in large herds. Babies join the herd right after birth.

Caribou are herbivores and eat grasses and plants in the summer and lichens, a type of fungus or algae, in the winter. Each summer, caribou migrate north. The females go first and the males and children come after. Once there, they feed on grasses all summer. When the snow begins to fall they head back south. This journey can be more than 1,600 miles long!

Because things easily blend into the white Arctic landscape, Caribou have very good eye site. Their eyes change from gold in the summer to blue in the winter to better improve their vision. Golden eagles and wolverines are known predators of caribou calves. Brown bears, grizzly bears, polar bears and gray wolves are also predators of adult and young caribou. 

Cool Fact: Caribou warn members of their herd of danger by releasing a special scent!

The Aye-Aye

The aye-aye is a small member of the lemur family known for its super long middle fingers. It is cute, but its long fingers and big eyes are also a little bit creepy (like the picture shows)! Its long middle fingers have hooked nails and help the aye-aye catch its favorite food - beetle larvae, or grubs. The aye-aye taps on trees and then uses its big ears to listen for grubs hiding under the tree bark. It uses its sharp teeth to chew through the wood and then puts its long middle finger inside the hole to grab the grub. This type of hunting is known as percussive foraging. The only other animal known to find food in this way is the striped possum.

The aye-aye lives in nests it builds in the trees of Madagascar. Aye-aye's grow to be about three feet long and weigh around four pounds. Young aye-ayes typically have silver fur. Adults grow to have white-tipped fur on their heads and backs and the rest of their bodies are yellow/brown in color. Like a rodent, the aye-aye's teeth never stop growing and are kept short by chewing holes in trees.  

The aye-aye is an omnivore. In addition to grubs, it also eats fruit, eggs, insects, fungi and nectar. The aye-aye is the world's largest nocturnal primate. They are mainly solitary animals. One of the aye-aye's closest relatives is the slow loris from Asia. (Stay tuned for a post about this animal!)

Legend has it that the aye-aye was considered bad luck or evil. Some people even thought that if an aye-aye pointed its middle finger at someone that person would be dead in a jiffy! 

Cool Fact: The aye-aye was thought to be extinct in 1933, but was rediscovered in 1957. 

The Sockeye Salmon

The sockeye salmon is one of the toughest fish in the world! Even tougher than the great white shark! Sockeye salmon are born in freshwater rivers and then migrate to the ocean when they grow up. They spend their adult life in the northern Pacific Ocean, but return to the freshwater rivers where they were born to breed. This journey upstream can be one thousand miles long and is full of dangerous obstacles, such as waterfalls and hydroelectric dams that can block their way. Predators, like American black bears, grizzly bears, Steller's sea lions and American bald eagles, know that it's time for the salmon to migrate and wait for the thousands of fish to swim by.  

Sockeye salmon are blue, silver and gray while living in the ocean. As they make their journey home, sockeyes turn bright red in color and males develop a humped back and hooked jaws. Once they reach fresh water, the females lay their eggs and the males fertilize them. The adult salmon die soon after, and their bodies supply nourishment to the young that later hatch. Young sockeyes spend one to two years in freshwater before migrating to the ocean. They then spend two to three years in the ocean before returning to fresh water. 

Sockeye salmon can grow to 2 to 2.5 feet long. They eat mostly plankton. Trout and char are also members of the salmon family. The coho salmon, the Atlantic salmon, the white spotted char, the artic char, the rainbow trout, and the apache trout all make similar journeys to breed. All of these fish have different colors in their scales. Check our my other posts about fish (the archer fish, the longnose gar and the electric eel)!

Cool Fact: The kokanee is a type of salmon that does not migrate to the ocean. They live their entire lives in freshwater.

The Honey Badger

The honey badger is one of the biggest members of the weasel family. It mainly lives in Africa, but can also be found in Southwest Asia and India. Like their name says, honey badgers love honey and have a very interesting way of getting it. They send a stinky, "suffocating" smell from their butts into beehives! They eat the bees as they escape from the hive and then break the hive open to eat the honey. The honey badger's very thick fur protects it from the angry bee stings.

Honey badgers look a little like skunks with their black fur and white stripe. Honey badgers have long bodies and very loose skin, which allows the animal to twist and turn easily. They have short, sturdy legs and five toes on each foot. The honey badger has long, sharp claws, like its relatives the Eurasian badger, which is similar in size and lives in Europe, and the wolverine. (Check out my post on the wolverine below!) Honey badgers can weigh 13 to 26 pounds, and females are smaller than males. 

Honey badgers will eat just about anything, including small mammals, insects, honey, amphibians and fruit. They are mostly solitary animals who live and hunt alone. Honey badgers are known for the toughness and will fight any animal that threatens it, even animals much larger than itself, like water buffalos, lions and hyenas. 

Cool Fact: Honey badgers have long claws that help them break open beehives. 

Science Question: Which is the toughest animal in Africa - the lion, the leopard, the hyena or the honey badger? Put your answer in the comments below. 

The Electric Eel

Despite their names, electric eels are actually not eels. They are members of the knifefish family, which are closely related to catfish. Electric eels produce electric currents that they use to locate and stun prey and to protect themselves from predators. They can deliver up to a 650-volt blast of electricity, which is strong enough to knock down a full-grown man! 

How do eels produce electricity? The electric eel has three pairs of organs that produce electricity: the main organ, the Hunter's organ, and the Sach's organ. These organs allow the eel to generate both low and high voltage electricity. Low voltages are used to sense their surrounding environment. High voltages are used to detect and stun prey, which is helpful because electric eels have poor eyesight.

Electric eels live on the murky bottom of the Amazon River in South America. They have long cylinder bodies. They can grow to almost 7 feet long and can weigh up to 45 pounds. They are dark gray/brown in color and have yellow or orange bellies. Electric eels eat invertebrates such as fish and small mammals such as rats. Predators of the electric eel include caimans, but predatory jaguars know to leave this creature alone because it is electric!  

Female electric eels lay eggs in nests made of the male's saliva, or spit. The male then guards the eggs until they hatch. Up to 1,200 eel eggs can hatch from a well guarded nest! 

Cool Fact: Electric eels can leap out of the water to attack predators and prey!

The Fennec Fox

The North African Fennec fox is a very cute member of the canine family and is the smallest fox in the world. It weighs only 2 to 3 pounds and measures 13 to 15 inches long! These animals are found in sandy deserts in northern Africa. They are best known for their very large ears, which can be used to hear prey underground and to emit heat to keep the animal cool in its hot environment. They also have thick fur, which helps keep them warm on cold nights. Their fur is the color of straw, and their noses and tips of their tails are black. Fennec foxes can live to be 10 to 14 years old. 

Fennec foxes are omnivores that eat insects, rodents, birds, lizards, fruits and tubers. Fennec foxes mate and stay with their families for life. They build large underground dens - sometimes with more than 15 different entrances - that can be connected to the dens of other fennec fox families.  

The African Great Horned Owl is a predator of fennec fox pups. Caracals, jackals and striped hyenas are also predators. But the fennec fox is fast and is known for quickly changing direction, so they can be hard to catch! 

Cool Fact: The Fennec fox isn't the only fox with extra big ears. The bat-eared fox and Blanford's fox also have large ones!

The Longnose Gar

The longnose gar is an ugly, strange, freshwater species of fish. They are predatory fish that burst out of hiding to stab their prey with their needle-sharp teeth. These fish are also known as the "longnose garpike" and the "billy gar." 

Longnose gars have gray, brown or olive green torpedo-shaped bodies covered in an armor of scales. They have long snouts that are about three times the length of their heads filled with very sharp, cone-shaped teeth. 

Longnose gars usually live in freshwater lakes, swamps, and sluggish rivers and streams. They can breathe both air and water so they can survive in environments that are low in oxygen. They can be found along the east coast of North and Central America, and as far west as Kansas, Texas and New Mexico.

Longnose gars cannot open their mouths very wide, so they mainly eat smaller fish such as shad, sunfish, and little catfish. They feed both day and night, but are more active at night. Longnose gars do not have any natural predators except for the American alligator. 

A single longnose gar can lay about 30,000 eggs a year. The eggs have a coating to help them stick to gravel or plants. This coating is toxic to other animals like mammals and birds. Females are typically larger than males, and the average length of a longnose gar is 2.5 to 4 feet. They can live for 17 to 20 years. 

Cool Fact: Longnose gars are often called "living fossils" and have been present in North America for 100 million years! 

Click here for information on the alligator gar!

The Proboscis Monkey

The proboscis monkey is a strange looking old world monkey. Males have a big, fleshy nose that looks like a lightbulb. This crazy nose makes its voice louder, which impresses females and scares other males. The bigger the nose, the louder the voice!

Proboscis monkeys live in mangroves and rain forests on the island of Borneo in Southeast Asia. They spend most of their time in trees, but are also excellent swimmers. They leap from trees into water with large belly flops!

Proboscis monkeys live in groups with one male and several females, who compete with each other over the male. Babies have black fur and bright blue faces when they are born. Proboscis monkeys aren't very big - males can weigh 35 to 49 pounds and females can weigh 15 to 26 pounds. Proboscis moneys are omnivores and mainly eat leaves, fruits and seeds, flowers and insects. Predators of proboscis monkeys include crocodiles, clouded leopards, eagles, monitor lizards and pythons. Proboscis monkeys are considered an endangered species because of habitat loss and hunting. 

Old world monkeys live in Africa and Asia. Most of them are tree dwellers and, unlike new world monkeys, they cannot grip with their tails. Baboons are also members of the old world monkey family.

Cool Fact: A proboscis is a pointed part of an animal's head, which is how this monkey got its name.