Fish:
*Fish are vertebrate animals that live in the water. Vertebrate means they have a spinal cord surrounded by bone or cartilage.
*Fish have gills that extract oxygen from the water around them.
*There are over 30000 known species of fish.
*Some flatfish use camouflage to hide themselves on the ocean floor.
*Tuna can swim at speeds of up to 70 kph (43 mph).
*Relative to their body size, fish have small brains compared to most other animals.
*Fish are covered in scales which are often covered in a layer of slime to help their movement through water.
*Cleaner fish help out other fish by removing parasites and dead skin from their scales.
*Over 1000 fish species are threatened by extinction.
*Mermaids are mythological creatures with the tail of a fish and the upper half of a woman.
Bird:
*There are around 10000 different species of birds worldwide.
*The Ostrich is the largest bird in the world. It also lays the largest eggs and has the fastest maximum running speed (97 kph).
*Scientists believe that birds evolved from theropod dinosaurs.
*Birds have hollow bones which help them fly.
*Some bird species are intelligent enough to create and use tools.
*The chicken is the most common species of bird found in the world.
*Kiwis are endangered, flightless birds that live in New Zealand. They lay the largest eggs relative to their body size of any bird in the world.
*Hummingbirds can fly backwards.
*The Bee Hummingbird is the smallest living bird in the world, with a length of just 5 cm (2 in).
*Around 20% of bird species migrate long distances every year.
Wolf:
*Wolves are excellent hunters and have been found to be living in more places in the world than any other mammal except humans.
*The wolf is the ancestor of all breeds of domestic dog. It is part of a group of animals called the wild dogs which also includes the dingo and the coyote.
*Most wolves weigh about 40 kilograms but the heaviest wolf ever recorded weighed over 80 kilograms!
*Adult wolves have large feet. A fully grown wolf would have a paw print nearly 13 centimetres long and 10 centimetres wide.
*Wolves live and hunt in groups called a pack. A pack can range from two wolves to as many as 20 wolves depending on such factors as habitat and food supply. Most packs have one breeding pair of wolves, called the alpha pair, who lead the hunt.
*Wolf pups are born deaf and blind while weighing around 0.5 kg (1 lb). It takes about 8 months before they are old enough to actively join in wolf pack hunts.
*Wolves in the Arctic have to travel much longer distances than wolves in the forest to find food and will sometimes go for several days without eating.
*When hunting alone, the wolf catches small animals such as squirrels, hares, chipmunks, raccoons or rabbits. However, a pack of wolves can hunt very large animals like moose, caribou and yaks.
*When the pack kills an animal, the alpha pair always eats first. As food supply is often irregular for wolves, they will eat up to 1/5th of their own body weight at a time to make up for days of missed food.
*A wolf can run at a speed of 65 kilometres per hour during a chase. Wolves have long legs and spend most of their time trotting at a speed of 12-16 kilometres per hour. They can keep up a reasonable pace for hours and have been known to cover distances of 90 kilometres in one night.
Bee:
*There are 9 different families of bees and around 20,000 known species.
*Some common types of 'social' hive inhabiting bees include the Honey bee, The Africanized Honeybee, (or 'killer bee') and the Bumble bee.
*'Solitary' bees that make their own single nest include the Carpenter Bee, Leafcutter bee, Mason bee, Digger Bee and Mining Bee.
*The every day bee that we associate with most is the honey bee (or honeybee). There are 7 species of honey bee and 44 subspecies.
*Honey bees live as large colonies in honeycomb structures built from beeswax called hives. There are 3 types of bees in a colony, drones, workers, and queens.
*Beeswax comes from abdomen glands of a worker bee, they use the wax to form the walls and caps of the comb.
*Honey is made from the nectar and sweet deposits that bees collect from plants and trees. Honey is stored in honeycomb as a food source for the colony.
*Bees have a long proboscis (type of tongue) that helps them to get the nectar out of flowers, they collect pollen in pollen baskets on their body.
*Worker bees are female, they collect pollen and nectar to feed the colony, they clean the hive, make the honey, take care of the offspring and groom / feed the queen. Worker bees live from 1 month in summer up to 9 months over winter.
*Drones are male, their one job is to mate with the queen, they live for 40 - 50 days.
Hope this helps!
