2 Camels have humps

Which is the biggest animal? The biggest animal that has ever lived is the blue whale-it is even larger than the biggest dinosaurs were. Blue whales can weigh as much as 150 cars! Female Queen Alexandm birdwings are the world's biggest butterflies. Their wings are as big as this page! The blue whale is so long that eight elephants could stand along its back. The giraffe is the tallest land animal. With its long neck, it can reach as high as a two-storey house. The mighty African elephant is the biggest land animal on Earth. It is three times tall as you are and can weigh as much as seven cars. The ostrich is the world's tallest and heaviest bird. It's as tall as a single-decker bus! The whale shark weighs as much as 40 cars. It's the world's biggest fish. The reticulated python can grow to be as long as a row of six bicycles! It's the world's longest snake.

What's the difference between sharks and dolphins? Although sharks and dolphins look alike, they belong to two very different animal groups. A shark is a kind of fish, but dolphins are members of another group, the mammals. You don't look anything like a dolphin. but you are a mammal. too! If an animal breathes air into lungs, and its babies feed on their mother's milk, it's a mammal. Most mammals have some fur or hair on their bodies. If an animal has feathers and hatches out of a hard-shelled egg, it's a bird. All birds have wings, and most of them can fly. If an animal has six legs and three parts to its body, it's an insect. There are more kinds of insect in the world than all the other kinds of animal put together. If an animal has damp slimy skin, and is born in water but lives much of its life on land, it's an amphibian. Baby amphibians hatch out of jelly-like eggs. If an animal has a dry scaly skin and is born on land, it's a reptile. Most reptiles lay eggs with leathery skins If an animal lives in water, breathing through gills and using fins to move, it's a fish. Most fish lay jelly-like eggs which hatch into baby fish.

What's the difference between... frogs and toads? Frogs usually have smooth skin, and long legs for leaping. Most toads have lumpy skin and move their short thick bodies about by crawling. and alligators and crocodiles? Crocodiles have longer, more pointed snouts than alligators. A crocodile also has one very large tooth sticking up on each side when it closes its mouth. and monkeys and apes? The big difference between these animals is that monkeys have long tails, but apes don't have tails at all. There are lots of different kinds of monkey, but the only apes are gorillas, orang-utans, chimpanzees, gibbons and humans. and rabbits and hares? Hares have longer legs and ears than rabbits. Their whiskers are longer, too. Frogs and toads are both amphibians. Alligators and crocodiles are both reptiles. Monkeys and apes are mammals. A woodlouse looks like an insect, but it isn't it has too many legs! This creepy- crawly is related to crabs and lobsters. Rabbits and hares are both mammals.

Why do animals have skeletons inside their bodies? Not all animals have skeletons, but most large ones do. This is because the bigger an animal is, the more it needs a strong, sturdy framework to hold its body together and carry its weight. Skeletons also protect soft inside parts, like brains and hearts. Which animals have skeletons on the outside? Most smaller animals have tough skins called exoskeletons. These outside skeletons do the same job as inside ones. They protect and support animals' soft bodies. Animals without backbones are called invertebrates. Insects, spiders, snails, worms, jellyfish, prawns and crabs are all invertebrates. Animals with backbones are called vertebrates. Fish are vertebrates, and so are amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. Most animals' skeletons are made of bone, but a shark's skeleton is made of gristle. This isn't as hard as bone, but it's still tough. You have some on the tip of your nose. Insects, spiders, scorpions, centipedes and millipedes all have tough exoskeletons. Lobsters, crabs and some beetles have really tough exoskeletons that work like armour, to protect them from attack. Colossal squid are the biggest kind of invertebrate. The longest one ever found measured more than 18 metres from its head to the tip of its tentacles longer than eight scuba divers! To grow larger, an animal has to break out of its old exoskeleton and grow a new one,

Why do camels have humps? A camel's hump is its own built-in food cupboard. By living off the fat stored in its hump, a camel can go for as long as two weeks without eating. Camels need their humps because they live in deserts, where food and water are hard to find. Why do elephants have trunks? An elephant's trunk is a helpful tool. It can be used to pull down leaves and branches to eat. It also makes a good hose—elephants can squirt dust or water over themselves to keep cool. Why do giraffes have long necks? A giraffe's long neck makes it tall enough to eat the leaves at the tops of trees. Other animals cannot reach as high, so the giraffe has lots to eat. Elephants say 'hello' to friends by shaking trunks with them. An elephant's trunk is a bit like a hand. Using its tip, an elephant can pick up something as small as a button. An Arabian camel has one hump. A thirsty camel can drink ten buckets of water in just ten minutes! A Bactrian camel has two humps. A giraffe's tongue is half a metre long!

Which bird has eyes in the back of its head? An owl's eyes aren't really in the back of its head, but at times they might as well be! Owls have such bendy necks that when they want to look backwards they swivel their heads right round! How do bats see in the dark? Bats not only speed about at night without bumping into things, they also manage to hunt down juicy insects to eat. Bats can do this even when it's pitch dark, because they use sound, not light, to find their way. Which animals smell with their tongues? Snakes and lizards don't smell with their noses like we do. Instead, they flick their long tongues in and out. Their tongues pick up smells from the air and the ground, helping them to track down things to eat. An owl's huge eyes help it to see at night. This is when most owls fly about hunting for food. Bats make lots of very high squeaking sounds as they fly about. When these sounds hit objects like insects or trees—they bounce off them, back towards the bats. The repeated sounds are called echoes. And bats can tell where things are by listening to the echoes. Starfish don't have heads, but they do have eyes. They are on the ends of their arms. The blue-tongued skink sticks out its big blue tongue to frighten enemies away. African elephants have ears as big as bedspreads the biggest ears in the world. Elephants have very good hearing, but their ears are also useful for keeping cool. They can be flapped like fans, for example.