Captain Kangaroo was the longest-running children’s television program when it aired weekday mornings from October 3, 1955 until 1984 on CBS. Bob Keeshan played Captain Kangaroo, and the show was set in “The Captain’s Place” where the Captain Kangaroo would tell stories, meet guests and perform silly stunts with puppets and regular human characters. Despite […]

We can’t speak for the donkeys, but their presence at the manger when Jesus was Born would have been likely. After all, it was a hotel stable, and we can assume there were all sorts of manger using animals hanging around and wondering what the heck was taking place in their food dish. Even if […]

Wallabies, Wallaroos, and Kangaroos are all macropods of the Macropodidae family. The word macropod comes from the Greek word meaning “long foot”. Macropods have very large hind legs and a long, powerfully muscled tail, and most are herbivorous grazers and have specialized teeth for cropping and grinding up fibrous plants. There are about 55 different […]

The St. Bernard Dog is a very large breed, and a working dog from the Swiss Alps, originally bred for rescue. The breed has become famous because it has helped save lives in the Swiss Alps, as well as for its large size. The ancestors of the St. Bernard share a history with the Sennenhunds, […]

The frog is an amphibian, an animal that stands somewhere between a fish and a reptile because it can live both in water and on land. Toads, newts, and salamanders are also amphibians. Frogs lay their eggs in water. When a young frog is born, it’s very much like a fish: it has gills on […]

Before there were engines, the only power available in the Western world, besides brute human strength, was the power of a horse. Engineer James Watt coined the term when making improvements to the steam engine in the 1760s. Watt needed to be able to place a value on the energy produced by the mechanical steam […]

Mange is a fairly common problem with camels, dogs, and a few other animals. It’s caused by a skin mite that burrows into the skin and results in itching, loss of appetite, hair loss, and white sores. This condition is very difficult for the camel and can ultimately lead to death if untreated. The good […]

The giant squid is the second biggest squid and marine invertebrate in the world after the colossal squid. The giant squid is bigger than any octopus, and can grow up to 43 feet for females and 33 feet for males from caudal fin to the tip of the two long tentacles. There have been reports […]

This happens because oil and water don’t mix. When a duck is swimming or out in the rain, the bird secretes an oil from glands near its tail. With its bill, the duck rubs the oil over its body. The oil keeps the water from soaking through the duck’s feathers, making the bird “waterproof.”

Most of Australia’s 140 Species of Native Snakes are Poisonous. Of the world’s top twenty-five most poisonous snakes, twenty-one of them are in Australia, including sea snakes that are two to ten times more poisonous than cobras. Sea snakes are venomous snakes that have evolved from terrestrial ancestors, and live in marine environments for most […]

Skunk spray or musk is not dangerous or poisonous to humans or animals such as dogs. However, to animals who depend on their sense of smell to hunt food, find and attract mates, or avoid predators, being sprayed makes them unable to pick up scents of any kind, leaving them vulnerable. There are 10 species […]

Male marsupials do have very strange forked penises. The other strange thing is that their testicles generally lie in front of their penises instead of in back like other mammals. So how do they have sex? Well, it turns out that there’s somebody for everybody, and marsupials are no exception. Female marsupials have two uteri […]

Mice and hamsters have an instinctual need to run whenever they can. Their metabolism is fast, and they burn off energy almost as fast as they consume food. Fortunately too, mice are quick learners. Curiosity leads them to the wheel to explore. Once on the wheel, it doesn’t take long for them to reach upward […]

The amazing but deadly little insect we know as a house fly actually has a remarkable body. Even though that body is responsible for spreading diseases, it is so wonderfully made and can do such unusual things that it is an insect to be marveled at. Most amazing of all is probably the house fly’s […]

The White Rhinoceros, also known as the Square-lipped rhinoceros, is one of the five species of rhinoceros that still exist and is one of the few megafaunal species left on earth. Found on the African continent, it is the most social of all rhino species, and has a wide mouth that is used for grazing. […]

The camel is well suited to its life on the desert. It is one of the few animals who can go without water for fairly long periods of time. Exactly how long depends on several factors: the temperature, the kind of work the camel is doing, and the food it is eating. A camel in […]

Believe it or not, there is a kinder gentler word for the poop that domesticated dogs leave behind. The proper, fancier word for dog poop is scumber, which we think sounds much, much better than poop. The word scumber probably came from the German word schummeln, meaning to cheat at cards. If you’re speaking of […]

Animals of all kinds were respected and revered in ancient Egypt, as they were in close contact with deities and gods. Egyptians discovered very early that cats, though not particularly loyal, at least had the virtue of being useful. By catching rodents, cats protected the food supply. Egyptians also used cats as retrievers in bird […]

The Bald Eagle selects old-growth coniferous or hardwood trees for its nest, and these trees must have good visibility, an open structure, and be close to prey. It is also important that the area has large trees surrounding a body of water. Bald Eagles build the largest nests of any North American bird, and they […]

Footballs aren’t really made of pigskin anymore. However, pigs are used for a wide variety of products beneficial to humans, particularly in the field of medicine. Pigskin, for instance, is placed as bandages on severe burns to protect skin while it grows and heals. The valves from pig arteries can be transplanted into humans with […]

The headmaster at Harry Potter’s school shares his name with an early term for the common bumblebee. Dumbledore, bumblebee, and humblebee could be onomatopoeic attempts to re-create the bee’s buzzing sound. Rowling said she chose the name Dumbledore, which is an Early Modern English word for “bumblebee”, because she “imagined him walking around humming to […]

Lions and Tigers never mate in the wild. But they sometimes do in in big cat refuges in the United States, resulting in hybrid cross-breed babies. The offspring are called ligers and tigons, or sometimes, illogically, tiglons. A liger is the result of a male lion mating with a tigress, while the tigon, or tiglon, […]

Ones of the most prominent features of the walrus is its long tusks, which are elongated canine teeth. The tusks of a walrus are present in both males and females and can reach a length of over 3 feet and weigh up to 12 pounds. Male walruses have slightly longer and thicker tusks, and use […]

A bandicoot is a species of small marsupial omnivores that look very much like rats. The word bandicoot is an anglicised form of the Telugu word pandi-kokku, which means pig-rat, and originally referred to the unrelated Indian Bandicoot Rat. There are twenty-one different species of bandicoots which live in Australia and New Guinea, including the […]