Some breeds of dog can run much faster than others, and the fastest dog of all is the greyhound. A fully grown greyhound can run at the astonishing speed of about 56 k.p.h., that is, at nearly a kilometer a minute. Because greyhounds runs so fast, greyhound racing is a poplar sport. At a greyhound racing track, the dogs are …

Jerboas are small rodents that look rather like miniature kangaroos. Their back legs are four times as long their front legs, and the tail is longer than the head and body put together. Like kangaroos they travel by leaps and bounds and at top speed can over 10 feet in a single jump. The tail trails behind and helps to …

In the broadest terms, venom functions as a neurotoxin, hemotoxin, or combination. Neurotoxins attack the nervous system and cause death by heart failure or suffocation (your lungs stop working). They also cause pain and paralysis. Hemotoxins attack the circulatory system and body tissues. The result is pain, swelling and thinning or thickening of the prey’s blood and degeneration of organs. …

The ringhals is a king of cobra, and it has two methods of self-defence. When danger first threatens, the ringhals pretends to be dead. It turns its body over, and lies there with its mouth open. Sometimes this has the desired effect and the would-be predator goes away. But if the predator persists the ringhals has another way of defecting …

When conditions are right special fertile winged termites hatch within the mound. They suddenly leave the rest in a dense swarm and disperse. After travelling a short way they drop to the ground and break off their wings which they no longer need. A male and a female pair up, choose a suitable home, perhaps in an old rotten log, …

Red squirrels, like their cousins the grey squirrels, eat a variety of food ranging from eggs raided from birds’ nests to nuts and pine cones. Pine cone seeds from the major part of their diet. These are methodically stripped from the pine cone. The squirrel nibbles out the seeds along on edge, and then, rotating the cone with its front …

A pen, that carries a supply of ink inside it, is called a fountain-pen. This ink supply is in a reservoir, either a disposable cartridge or a rubber, sac-like container inside the pen’s barrel. Disposable cartridges can be removed completely and replaced with a new one when they run dry, but the sac is filled by a different method. On …

Everybody has seen a spider’s web, and admired the skull which the spider has in web making. We know that the substance used in web making is silk, which the spider makes, and that it uses this silk not only for webs but for a whole variety of other purposes. We also know that the type of web varies very …

When plant die, the remains usually rot and break down into water, carbon dioxide and simple salts. But is swamps and bogs, layers of rotting plants are often buried and the decay is halted. Slowly, these plant remains are pressed into a compact substance called peat. When peat is dug up, 90 percent of its weight is often water. However, …

One of the three types of locust that forms swarms in Africa is the Desert Locust. This locust usually lives like a grasshopper in what is called a solitary phase. Sometimes, however, all the solitary locusts from a wide a area are driven together, perhaps by the weather, and they may find the conditions just right for feeding and mating. …