It turns out that we are not the only smart creatures in this planet. Animals also have some extraordinary abilities at being clever, as I had read in The Smartest Animals on the Planet, by Dr Sally Boysen. Bees have a special dance they do to show other bees the locations of flowers, but not as fascinating as the ants who find their way home by keeping track of the number of steps they take as they search for food! I really had a great time reading this book so check it out yourself and find out more extraordinary tales of the planet’s cleverest creatures. The call number, by the way, is J591.51 in the children’s non fiction area.
birds & animals
Salty Sea Dog Tale
Herbet is a book that has just won the Russell Clark Award at the LIANZA Children’s Book Awards in Wellington. It’s a true story about a dog washed from a boat and found still swimming for his life 30 hours later! This book tells about Tim and Herbert. Everyone thought Herbert was lost in the sea, but Tim did not. Thirty hours later Herbert was found paddling, exhausted but still alive. Come and check out the book for a good read!
Pet History
Do you have something furry, scurrying, swimming or even flying at home? Then most probably you are one of the millions of people who have a pet. Have you ever wondered when our love affair with domesticating animals started? It goes way back when Queen Cleopatra gave Roman emperor Julius Caesar a giraffe and the 16th century pope Leo X even had a dancing white elephant. But not all animals can be pets so don’t start getting any ideas of owning a tiger because one tiger pet-owner-wanna-be got mauled! We must remember to leave wild animals where they belong. If you want to know more about how we started to have pets check out Animals in the House by Sheila Keenan. It’s a vey informative and cool book!
Zoo-ology
A new series in the library is very large! 46 centimetres to be exact. Each page of Zoo-ology is covered with wonderful pictures of animals and insects, from sea creatures to birds, from night creatures to large and small creatures. The drawings are bright simple designs, very good for tracing if you are doing a project or just for fun. If you love looking at animals this is a great book to get hold of.
How Much Poo Does an Elephant Do?
Well apparently an elephant produces a mind blowing pongy 20 kilos of dung a day! How Much Poo Does an Elephant Do? is another book by Mitchell Symons that has lots of quirky, weird and wonderful trivia for you. I found this one fascinating: in India the term “man-eating” is only applied to tigers that have killed three or more people. Man-eating tigers are usually too old to capture wild animals. Isn’t that wild or what! So check out this book. If you like it then also try other books by the same author How to Avoid a Wombat’s Bum and Why Eating Bogeys is Good for You.
Horse of the Year
Last week in Hastings was Horse of the Year time, when heaps of people (and horses and ponies) get the chance to compete against the best in New Zealand (and Australia and other places) to find out which horses and ponies are the most beautiful, most athletic, most gymnastic, most obedient, most fabulous. There were horses of all shapes and sizes there – maybe you know someone who competed.
You can visit the website here, for information and results to find out who really was the horse of the year. Just a couple of interesting facts: if you’re 
into showjumping, the horse of the year turned out to be Australian. Maybe next year. If you like dressage then you’ll be interested to know that the winner of the major Grand Prix competition was a 22 year old stallion. That’s a seriously old horse!
If you love horses there are heaps of books and things in the library to choose from. For books about riding check out this Kids’ Catalogue link, or for general horse books check out this link. Oh, and if you know the real difference between a horse and a pony make sure you let us know!
Kids Catalogue Web: Explore Some Birds & Animals!
Hi guys!
Do you often need info about New Zealand animals for your school homework sheets & projects? Then Kids Catalog Web can help! Navigate to the Explore section and choose NZ Aotearoa / NZ Animals. To see all the fantastic web pages on your chosen topic, click on the button of the animal you want. As this is a book catalog, it will usually come up with a list of books on that topic first. Just look for an icon with a spider sitting on a web (it’s on the left hand side of page and has the words see web pages) and click on that for the URLs.
Here’s some examples of the kinds of websites that you will find there…
Animal fact sheets:
New Zealand zoos have fact sheets on the animals that live there. Here’s the Hamilton Zoo site: Just click on Birds, Reptiles or Mammals and choose the fact sheet for the animal you want.
Animal Pests:
Te Ara, the Encyclopedia of New Zealand is getting more and more stuff added all the time. In “The Bush” section you can check out all our native animals & insects plus their predators. But this section in Conservation is all about the Introduced Animal Pests which threaten our native wildlife.
Penguins:
There’s loads of info about our unique and endangered animals too like the Little Blue Penguin. The Oamaru Penguin Colony website has some great facts plus their life cycle.
Sharks: If you don’t mind the sight of blood – check out this site from the Auckland Museum about dissecting a Great White Shark.
Paddy the Wanderer
Paddy the Wanderer by Diane Haworth is a book about an amazing Airedale terrier, Paddy, who captured public imagination throughout New Zealand during the Great Depression, and who is today honoured in Wellington by a statue! Do you know where the statue is? Paddy is considered a much-loved local legend. He was a great friend to the taxi drivers, and those who worked around the wharf area of Wellington. Click on this link to see his memorial.
Freaky Fish
Did you know that there are 28,000 species of fish known to exist and that new species are being discovered every year. If you would like to check out some really Freaky Fish, then take a look at the fish in this book. The Viperfish are among the fiercest predators of the deep. It has sharp fanglike teeth that are so long that they do not fit inside its mouth, but curve back close to the fish’s eyes and boy is it ugly. Or what about the Swordfish – its long sharp bill which looks like a sword is at least one-third of the fish’s length. It has even been know for Swordfish to push their swords through the sides of small boats, so watch out next time you go fishing.
A Rabble of Butterflies…?
Hey guys,
Ever wondered what to call a group of ants, donkeys, apes, or elephants are called? No? Well check this out anyway!
Christchurch City libraries have done all the hard work for you and have sussed out what to call different groups of animals from a troop of giraffes to a parcel of hens.
You can have a giggle at more strange names here- http://christchurchcitylibraries.com/Kids/Animals/Groups/