Everything you ever wanted to know about wildlife!
Here are some of the winners of our most recent Kids Zooworks contest, featured in Zoobooks Apes.
. Do you have a favorite? Enlist the young artists you know to enter our next contest, where winners will appear on the web. By March 10, send drawings done in color or black ink on solid white paper–or submit a story or poem on the animal of your choice (less than 100 words) to: PO Box 712769, Santee, CA 92072-2769.
The letter “D” has never had such a fine showing as it has had this month in our newest Zootles issue, Dolphins
. What do dolphins do? Doubtless, they dive deep. They dart away from danger. And in a way, they even dog-paddle!
Dolphins breathe through a blowhole, and breathing air with lungs is one of the biggest indicators that dolphins are mammals rather than fish. Fish swish their tails from side to side; dolphins swish theirs up and down. Their skin is smooth and rubbery, and protects them in cold water.
Dolphins can’t smile, but their mouths are shaped in such a way that they look happy. Maybe they are! They get to ride the waves like surfers, and sometimes leap in the wakes of large ships. They eat lots of their favorite foods–fish, squid, or octopus–by swallowing it whole.
Have you ever wondered if dolphins sleep? They do, but not the way we do. Dolphins float on one side and sleep with one eye open. After a while, they roll over to the other side and open the other eye. Now that’s the ultimate water bed!
Dolphins like to be with other dolphins, and we have the feeling that young Zootles readers are going to like being with dolphins, too. Let us know which of the fun facts in this issue were most popular at your house!
Few of us can personally visit all of the zoos in America, but almost all of us can visit online. And the National Zoo is clearly eager for online visitors!
Because our Zoobooks issue this month is Apes, we suggest you start with the zoo’s primate pages first. There you’ll find ape jigsaw puzzles, coloring pages, fact sheets, e-cards, photo galleries, and a gorilla cam, just to get things going. If all that clicking doesn’t wear you out, move on to the pages that explain how some primates got their names; chances to “meet” the primate staff; and opportunities to learn about the individual apes housed there at the National Zoo. We guarantee you’ll have a swinging good time!
More seriously, the National Zoo is very concerned about and involved in ape conservation. Counting all species together, there are fewer than half a million apes left in the world. Educating children about apes and their value on our planet can only be positive, and this zoo, hand-in-hand with your Zoobooks issue, is a great place to start learning.
Your next Zoobooks issue, Apes, will tell you straight off that our DNA differs from that of a chimpanzee by only about 2%. Our similarities are easy enough to see: apes can stand upright, they have fingernails and fingerprints, large brains, expressive faces, and obvious intelligence. More than that, they have five fingers and toes, forward-looking eyes, 32 teeth, and ears that have the same kinds of wrinkles and lobes.
But apes, of course, are still vastly different from people. Gorillas, the largest apes, have shorter height averages than humans, and weigh a lot more. All apes have longer arms than they do legs. They are also much stronger–any ape can be counted on to be more powerful than a human of similar size. They are considerably hairier than people, too.
The similarities amuse and puzzle us, and encourage us to protect these animals that are at such risk from poaching, logging, and bushmeat hunting. Africans who live near mountain gorillas are proud of them, and encourage tourists to come see them. Local children love the gentle gorillas in their midst, and grow up knowing firsthand that gorillas–and all apes–are special. 
To begin with, all living things fill our world with beauty, wonder, and excitement. More importantly, we couldn’t live without them! All animals and plants are linked together. Each species plays a role in keeping the world of nature alive and in balance. We are a part of that natural world. Every species depends on other species. The plants and animals of the world sustain us.
When a species disappears, the balance shifts. Imagine that the world of nature is like a pyramid made of blocks. Each block has a role to play in holding up the pyramid. If you remove one block, it probably won’t make much difference. Even if you remove 25 blocks, it may not cause much damage. But if you remove hundreds and thousands of blocks, the pyramid will almost certainly fall down. When too many plants and animals disappear, it harms the world we live in, and people suffer. This has already happened in many parts of the world.
We can save endangered animals, however, if we really want to. Some have already been saved by making sure that they were no longer hunted or trapped. Many are given free range in protected preserves. And many are helped to reproduce and replenish their species in zoos.
Playing around is a terrific way to get our children smiling. We make like elephants and march around the living room. We flap our ears. We even bend forward and sway our arms like a trunk. Don’t forget to let out a scream: terooot! Letting ourselves go makes for great silly time with our children.
Reading to a toddler is a launch pad for learning beyond the book. Children who are exposed to a rich vocabulary early on learn more words. Zoobies Elephants gives us lots of engaging material to talk about. We like pointing to parts of the elephant’s body as we say the words. It’s fun, too, to use an expressive voice as we read the simple text. Try wiggling your finger up and down when reciting the verse in Zoobies aloud. Every time our children make a sound, we can repeat the sound to mimic a conversation. These simple interactive experiences will help boost children’s language development.
Zootles Penguins is a wet and wild look at one of our favorite flightless birds. Ever wondered how these tuxedo-clad avians survive is temperatures that would stop us cold?
A penguin is waterproof, first of all. Water can’t soak into the 
skin because the skin is covered with a lot of tightly packed feathers coated in oil. A thick layer of blubber under the skin works like a parka for keeping a penguin warm, too. In sub-freezing temperatures, penguins huddle together to keep warm, rotating so that every bird gets a chance to be in the middle of the group.
Penguins vary a lot in size. The smallest is the little blue penguin, at just over a foot tall and 2-1/2 pounds. Emperor penguins are almost four feet tall and weigh 80 pounds–larger than many children! Their habitat varies, too–from the icy cold of Antarctica to the sunny coast of South Africa.
So how many of these fun facts did you already know, and how many were news to you? Are there any other penguin tidbits out there that you think are worth sharing? Feel free to add them below!
The Woodland Park Zoo promotes the rather surprising idea that one third of all global greenhouse emissions are caused by the food we choose to eat! We’ve known for a long time that recycling and water conservation are critical, but who would have guessed that something as basic as our diet could affect our planet?
This month, our Zoobooks issue Endangered Animals has us thinking about how to help our environment, so Woodland Park’s tips on how to “eat like an animal” come at a perfect time. You’ll find that their suggestions will not only make for a healthier planet, but for a healthier YOU, too.
Beyond this, the zoo has plenty of ideas on what you can do in your own backyard to create and enhance habitat for wildlife. The best part is that all these suggested changes mean fun family projects and (in the case of a food garden) a return to self-reliance that is a great example for children.
We’d love to hear which of these ideas you decide to try, and the outcome of your efforts. Feel free, too, to post a photo on our facebook page! We’d love to see your projects grow.
Endangered animals can be a sobering subject. Nobody wants to think of beautiful tigers or gorillas or exotic birds ever disappearing. But a close look at the plight of endangered animals can actually be a very positive–and even empowering–thing.
People may have caused the difficulty for many animal populations, but people are the source of recovery and healing, too. In this month’s Zoobooks issue, Endangered Animals, kids will get to share in many of the success stories involving animals in trouble.
The Arabian Oryx, a type of antelope, was extinct in the wild by the 1970′s. Today, because of captive breeding, about 1,000 have been reintroduced into the deserts of the Middle East. The Mongolian Wild Horse is following this example, with 50 reintroduced animals in the wild so far. By the early 1940′s, there were only 15 whooping cranes left–and yet today, there are 382 in the wild. One of the most dramatic recoveries has been the white-tailed gnu, which was once down to just a few hundred animals–and now numbers about 1.5 million.
Kids need to know they can make a difference, and Zoobooks Endangered Animals encourages this. May the conservation continue!
We think of reading as a sedentary activity, but Zoobies Tigers delights by sound and motion–not the technological kind, but the play-along-and-use-your-imagination kind!
Toddlers love lowering their voices and “shh”ing to creep along with the prowling tiger, especially when the growling tiger on the very next page lets them let loose with a roar. And later on, when tigers are stretching, creeping, running, and leaping, it’s surprising how well these motions can be imitated–even from the confines of a car seat or a lap.
In the playtime section of the Zoobies & You pages in the back, there are ideas for making these motions even more dramatic and engaging. There are ideas, too, for using Zoobies Tigers to point out shapes and colors, and for pushing the observations made in the book beyond its pages and into real life. We’d love to hear about the creative ways your little one has enjoyed Zoobies!
