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There are more than 1,000 species of bats in the world! They live on every continent of the world, except Antarctica. Bats do not live in areas where it is very hot or very cold, and there are some remote islands that are not home to bats.

Bats are mammals. They account for more than 25 percent of all the mammals on the earth! Bats are the only mammals that can fly.

Mother bats have one baby in their litter. The baby bats are called “pups.” When a pup is born, it usually has no hair and its eyes are closed. It clings to the mother bat and drinks milk from her. When the pup is about four months old, it learns to fly.

The bat is more closely related to primates.

Bats are fantastic fliers. They are able to truly fly. Bats are the only mammals able to have powered flight.

A bat's body is made for flight. The neck is short, the chest is large and the stomach is narrow. In order to fly a body must have a wide, thin surface. It also needs the power to push through the air.

Section: Festival The start of the New Year has been celebrated in China for more than 3,000 years. New Year was a time when the farmers gave thanks for the harvest and prayed to the gods for a good harvest in the coming year. This was the one period in the busy farming year when there was time to have a celebration and when the family could get together, relax, and be merry. Chinese New Year begins with a New Moon. The Lunar Year is calculated from the time it takes for the Moon to travel around the Earth, while the Western (Gregorian) calendar is based on the time it takes for the Earth to circle the Sun. The orbits of the Moon bear no relation to the time it takes for the Earth to go around the Sun, which is why the Chinese Lunar New Year is celebrated on a different date each year. In China the New Year was renamed the Spring Festival, in 1911, when the Western calendar was officially accepted in China. However, it is still commonly known around the world as the Chinese New Year. Chinese years are named after one of twelve animals. These have been used in the same order to name the years since the sixth century A.D. Each animal is said to have its own personality and emotions, which are present in people born within its year. ~~~~~~~~By Sarah Moyse This article is copyrighted. All rights reserved.Source: Chinese New Year (0-7613-0374-X)

Holidays are very important to the French. The French begin the year with a celebration of the Jour de l'An, which is New Year's Day. They greet each other by saying "Bonne Annee!" (Happy New Year). On January 6th there is la Fete des Rois (the Festival of the Three Kings), where people have a King's Cake. Whoever finds the special toy that has been baked into the cake gets to be king or queen for the day. In February, the French celebrate la Saint-Valentin or Valentine's Day by giving, valentines and chocolates. Also the French mark the start of Lent (a religious time when people fast) with Mardi Gras celebrations. On the 1st of April people play tricks on each other and say "Poisson d'avril!" which means "April fish!" People have little paper fishes that they cut out and try to stick on the backs of their friends that day. Easter is an important holiday in France. On the morning of Easter Sunday, most French people go to church. Afterwards, they carry home candles that have been blessed by priests. For Easter, which is called Le Pacques, omelettes, (an egg dish) are usually eaten for breakfast. People also give each other chocolate eggs and chocolate bunnies.

Holidays are very important to the French. The French begin the year with a celebration of the Jour de l'An, which is New Year's Day. They greet each other by saying "Bonne Annee!" (Happy New Year). On January 6th there is la Fete des Rois (the Festival of the Three Kings), where people have a King's Cake. Whoever finds the special toy that has been baked into the cake gets to be king or queen for the day. In February, the French celebrate la Saint-Valentin or Valentine's Day by giving, valentines and chocolates. Also the French mark the start of Lent (a religious time when people fast) with Mardi Gras celebrations. On the 1st of April people play tricks on each other and say "Poisson d'avril!" which means "April fish!" People have little paper fishes that they cut out and try to stick on the backs of their friends that day.

Myths and legends from all over the world portray bats as blood-sucking demons. Vampire bats really do exist, but only three species in Central and South America.

Vampire bats feed on the blood of large birds, cattle, horses, and pigs. However, they donÕt suck the blood of their "victims".

Using their sharp teeth, the bats make tiny cuts in the skin of a sleeping animal. The bats' saliva contains a chemical that keeps the blood from clotting. The bats then lap up the blood that oozes from the wound. Another chemical in their saliva numbs the animal's skin and keeps them from waking up.

Dogs As Companion Animals

For decades dogs (Canis familiaris) have been used to aid humans in tasks such as hunting, herding and guarding. Dogs have also been used to enhance the quality of life of individuals with disabilities. This includes guiding and alerting people with impaired vision or hearing, and retrieving dropped items for the physically challenged. More recently, the concept of dog-assisted therapy has evolved into tremendously successful programs in the areas of physical rehabilitation and psychological recovery. However, as society has moved from small rural communities to increasingly large urban and suburban centers, the role of dogs as mere companions has increased. More than 30 million Americans live with one or more dogs, the majority of whom are kept as social companions.

valuable part of the community

highly intelligent animals, capable of learning

companion animal

Kookaburras (genus Dacelo) (or Cookaburras)

terrestrial kingfishers native to Australia and New Guinea

Kookaburras are best known for their unmistakable call, which is uncannily like loud, echoing human laughter — good-natured, if rather hysterical, merriment in the case of the well-known Laughing Kookaburra (Dacelo novaeguineae); and maniacal cackling in the case of the slightly smaller Blue-winged Kookaburra (D. leachii)

Many celebrations and thanksgiving ceremonies were held to show gratitude for the natural blessings that were a part of life. People gave thanks for the beginning of each new year, the time when the maple sap began to flow, the planting and harvesting of the crops, and the ripening of corn, beans, and strawberries, which they celebrated with festivals.

Native people cared about their environment, especially because they depended on it so much.

Hunters asked silent permission from the animals they killed and thanked them for providing food and clothing for the families of the hunters. They hunted in different places so they would not kill too many animals in any area.

More has been published about the extinction of dinosaurs at the K-T boundary than any other group of organisms. Excluding a few controversial claims, it is agreed that all non-avian dinosaurs went extinct at the K-T boundary. The dinosaur fossil record has been interpreted to show both a decline in diversity and no decline in diversity during the last few million years of the Cretaceous, and it may be that the quality of the dinosaur fossil record is simply not good enough to permit researchers to distinguish between the choices.[54] Since there is no evidence that late Maastrichtian nonavian dinosaurs could burrow, swim or dive, they were unable to shelter themselves from the worst parts of any environmental stress that occurred at the K-T boundary. It is possible that small dinosaurs (other than birds) did survive, but they would have been deprived of food as both herbivorous dinosaurs would have found plant material scarce, and carnivores would have quickly found prey to be in short supply.[35] The growing consensus about the endothermy of dinosaurs (see dinosaur physiology) helps to understand their full extinction in contrast with their close relatives, the crocodilians. Cold-blooded crocodiles have very limited needs of food (they can survive several months without eating) while warm-blooded animals of similar size need much more food in order to sustain their faster metabolism. Thus, under the circumstancies of food chain disruption above mentioned, non-avian dinosaurs died [55] while some crocodiles survived. In this context, the survival of other endothermic animals, such as some birds and mammals, could be due, among other

?Eres lo que lees?. You are what you read. The sentence, written with dog food, was displayed on the white wall of an art gallery. Close to that wall, an abandoned and diseased street dog was left tied to a rope and a wire string. An incense burner was placed nearby where, allegedly, crack and cannabis was burnt during the inauguration. Without food and water, the animal died in the gallery during the next day.It happened in Nicaragua. It was an ?installation? by artist Guillermo Vargas, known as Habacuc.The situation, documented with several images, received a lot of attention on the web and originated an online petition against it?s author that gathers, as I write these words, close to 50.000 signatures.