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You may be wondering what happened after the invention of the fire engine to all those trusty horses that gallantly served the many city and county fire departments across the country.

The older horses were put out to pasture for their retirement. The younger horses were sold to various merchants who used them to pull their delivery vans and carts. Occasionally a delivery cart would be seen careening around a corner at break-neck speed with the deliveryman holding on for dear life as the horse raced to the scene of a fire! Even after many years, the well-trained horses could not resist answering the call of a fire alarm!

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As a young girl growing up in the Midwest, Jenny chased the dramatic orange and black butterflies called Monarchs across her neighbors’ yards and gardens. The butterfly’s fluttering beauty always conjured a flood of happy childhood memories.

Now stationed with her husband near Santa Barbara, California, Jenny wants to share her delight with her six year-old-son, Matt. The two of them get up this chilly December morning and head for the eucalyptus grove a few miles away.

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The name Tarantula refers really, to a large varied group of hairy spiders. Not exactly what you want to find waiting for you when you pull back the covers at bedtime!

Actually, Tarantulas are generally not any more poisonous than other spiders, though their hairs can cause allergic reaction. They may be found in warm climates like those in the western and southern United States and the tropics. They like to live in small burrows.

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Okay, let’s take a little mind trip: first, pretend that you are an insect. Your mother in this scenario is also an insect. She is using her ovipositors to saw open the bark of a twig. Once she has done that, she lays the eggs that she is carrying (in this case you too) into the confine of the twig’s split wood. There you go, along with at least a dozen of your brothers and sisters into the place that will shelter you until you are mature enough for the next stage in your cicada development.

In about 6 or 7 weeks, you find that and your siblings have matured into nymphs. Now you are all ready to drop into the earth for further development. You burrow down to the roots of the tree where you will reside for a long time.

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Once you’ve seen it, you won’t forget the odd beauty of the pelican scanning the sea for its meal. When it flies, it resembles a prehistoric bird, with its broad wingspan and long beak.

Each flap of its 4-foot wings increases its velocity as the pelican sails through the air. When it spots its prey, far below in the water, it seems to stop in mid air. But only for a moment does the bird pause, because it suddenly drops like an anvil into the ocean. Once it does this dive-bomb, the pelican will pause to enjoy the fish it has caught and will soon return to the sky for another pass.

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Did you know that rabbits and hares are not the exact same animal? Many people assume that because the two mammals look so much alike, that rabbit and hare are two different words to describe the same animal. Wrong-o, amigos. There is an actual difference between these long-eared, puffy-tailed critters.

For one thing, rabbits are born with their eyes closed and with no fur to cover their bodies. Hares, on the other hand, do not need the protection of the underground rabbit burrow, because they are born with open eyes and a full coat of full. The hare also has longer ears and a bigger body than the rabbit.

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Slimy, squishy, squiggly, wriggly. Apt descriptions for the underground denizens we call worms. Seemingly limp, hairless little creatures, the worms you see in your garden surprisingly do some very heavy work. You might just say they are the bald muscle men of the underground!

Worms don’t have a single bone in their body. But don’t let that fool you. Worms are quite muscular! They have muscles that go in circles around their bodies and other muscles that run the length of their bodies. By tightening their circular muscles, they can stretch into a thinner, longer self. The movement of relaxing and tightening the circular muscles also squeezes the front end of their body forward. The other long muscles squeeze together and help move the rear end of the body toward the front end. Without the help of arms or legs, a worm has to have good muscle tone to get somewhere!

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If you’ve ever tried to watch worms slithering around in their underground habitats, you know how difficult that can be. Here is an easy way to observe them looking for food and hard at work mixing the soil. Be sure to ask an adult to help you with this project.

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Even though they are almost entirely covered with dark hair and make nests in trees each night, chimpanzees are considered the closest living animal relative to human beings. You won’t find a chimp living in your apartment building, or going to your school, however.

But, if you visit Africa, you will find the chimp living in the jungle and wood-covered savanna ranging from Sierra Leone on the West Coast of Africa to Lake Victoria on the East central side of the continent.

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When you wish upon a star, you usually are looking high into the night sky. However, you could wish upon a star that actually lives right here on earth. This star does not send its light across millions of miles of deep space. Nope, this star crawls slowly across the sandy floor of our oceans, and radiates beautiful colors from its rough, leathery skin. You’ll find it in a tide pool or during your visit to the local aquarium. Earth people refer to this heavenly body as a sea star, or starfish.

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Awakening in its mountain den, the beautiful and mysterious Snow Leopard pads over to the cave entrance and sniffs the cold, thin air. The sun rises over the craggy peaks of the Himalayas, the loftiest mountains in the world, and the Snow Leopard emerges onto the snow pack. With large padded paws covered in thick fur, the 150-pound cat can gracefully traverse the snow without sinking, as if on snowshoes. Her luxuriously thick gray coat covered in charcoal colored spots, keeps her dry and protects against the frigid temperatures.

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When the ancient Greeks built ceremonial fires, a strange thing would occur when they set the logs on fire. As the wood took flame, out of the pile would crawl these strange lizard-like creatures.

These beings walked with a loping gait, and were often brightly colored. Their black eyes would reflect the flames, their sudden appearance shocking the onlookers. “Perhaps these creatures lived in the fire,” thought the ancient people. They took to calling these little monsters “salamanders,” or fire-lizards.

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