Insects are all around us! In Everyday Insects, children will learn about the insects they are likely to see during their day-to-day lives and discover interesting facts about these insects. Beautiful images and easy-to-understand text will teach kids about beetles, ants, flies, grasshoppers, and wasps. Topics include the basic body parts of insects, the types of insects children will see around their homes and yards, everyday insects, such as ants, that live in colonies, and what everyday insects eat and how they find food.
This fascinating book compares and contrasts the different characteristics of animals as they change and grow from babies to adults. Children will also learn that animals such as kittens, born in the same litter, all look like cats, but each one can have a different color or pattern on its fur.
Insects live all over the world and are food for many animals, including other insects! Children will be fascinated to learn about the many ways these tiny creatures defend themselves against predators. Well-written text, full-color photographs, and clearly labeled illustrations help children discover the senses insects use to avoid predators, how insects bite and sting to defend themselves, how insects blend in with their surroundings in order to remain unnoticed, and how the brightly colored bodies of some insects warn predators to stay away.
Different animals use their body parts in different ways to seek, find, and take in food. Accessible text and detailed photographs help readers understand how animals eat.
If you think all babies are cute, think again! There are disgusting and dreadful stages in the life cycles of many different animals. From tadpoles that eat one another to bloodthirsty bugs, this amazing book describes the gross beginnings of animals that crawl, swim, or fly. Get your hands dirty, too, with some easy (and painless!) experiments.
If you were a hungry coyote, would you brave a skunks stinky spray for a meal, or would it leave a bad taste in your mouth? Many animals have survival techniques that offend the senses or strike fear in the hearts of predators. From deadly defenses to revolting eating habits, this interesting book describes the disgusting and frightening survival techniques of animals. Get your hands dirty, too with some easy (and painless!) experiments.
What are those fast-moving bugs you see when you turn on the kitchen light? Where did they go? Most likely, they were cockroaches. One of the most hated and feared insect species, cockroaches love to live with humans and have done so for centuries. Cockroaches is a lively historical and biological biography of this loathed creepy crawly. Colorful images show many varieties of cockroaches, including the massive Madagascar hissing cockroach, which is sometimes collected by insect fanciers! Special sections feature pest control methods, the cockroach in popular culture, and facts and myths.
Animals have become extinct for many reasons. The most famous example, the extinction of the dinosaurs, may have been the result of an asteroid hitting Earth or an Ice Age freezing them to death. Prehistoric mammoths and saber-toothed cats may simply have been hunted to extinction. Today, animals such as elephants, zebras, tigers and leopards, some wolves, and many kinds of primates may still face extinction due to climate change, habitat loss, hunting, poaching, and pollution. This fascinating book introduces and explains the designations of endangerment from extinct in the wild to vulnerable. Children are also introduced to fossils as a way of learning about animals that lived long ago.
Furry, creepy, and seemingly sneaky, rats have a bad reputation for spreading disease and stealing food from under our noses. They are quite comfortable living in a number of environments, from swamps, to mountains, to basements. Color images show different species of rats, while informative text explains what a species is. A special section on pest control explains how rats were controlled in the Middle Ages and how they are controlled today. A section on lab rats even explains how these mammal pests have helped humans fight disease.
Ever get the icky sensation that your skin is crawling? Like tiny little bugs are scampering over your arms, your legs . . . your face? Well there really may be bugs on you, ones that are too small for you to see. Feasting Bedbugs, Mites, and Ticks examines the tiny, sometimes microscopic, insects that make their homes in our homes and on our bodies. Vibrant text and macro images put these creatures into hyper focus. A special popular culture section explains the origins of the old adage: sleep tight and don't let the bedbugs bite.
Termites can literally eat you out of house and home! Carpenter ants will use your home like a wood lot, taking what they want when they want, but without paying! Termites and Other Home Wreckers examines pests that chew, build, and bore their way into homes. Creepy images show the insects at different stages of the life cycle, and a family tree section lets you know who is related to whom.
This informative and beautiful book looks at apex or top predators - animals that are not eaten by other animals in their habitats - and why these animals play a very important role in keeping food chains in balance. Students are introduced to the energy pyramid, which shows that there are fewer top predators than other animals and gives reasons why many of these animals are endangered. Humans, the most powerful top predators, are the biggest threat to these essential endangered animals.
They feed on us, make their homes on us, and generally make our lives miserable. They are horrible guests, sometimes spreading deadly diseases. These blood-sucking parasites are lice and fleas and they are pests of the first order! This book delves into the tiny world of ectoparasites that prey on humans and animal hosts. Learn how lice and fleas cant live without us and how humans have been battling the itchy critters, often without much success, since the dawn of time. Special sections give information on the plague-producing history of rat fleas and how to combat the scourge of head lice.
This intriguing book looks at the remarkable abilities of plants and animals, which need to be studied to make our environment more sustainable. People have already used birds as models for constructing airplanes, but there are so many other models that have not been replicated. Living things live at the depths of oceans and at the tops of the highest mountains, harness the energy of the sun to make food, make oxygen from carbon dioxide, walk on water, build structures that are air-conditioned, and make materials stronger than steel without ever polluting or damaging the environment. They have done all the things we wish we could do. This book will make young scientists aware of the super powers of nature and may inspire some to find ways to change the future of Earth!
All living things die. Fortunately, nature has cleaners that eat decomposing things. Scavengers, detrivores, and decomposers are three groups of living things that use the leftover energy in things that have died. From hyenas and vultures eating carcasses, to mushrooms feeding on rotting wood, to dung beetles rolling in animal waste, this book has it all in vivid color!
Camouflage is blending into a natural environment, but mimicry is pretending to be another living thing to survive. Mimics use shape, pattern, sound, smell, and/or behavior to fool predators or prey. This amazing book will thrill readers of all ages with photographs of some of the masters of mimicry. Some are simply unbelievable! Mimics such as mantises, leaf insects, snakes, frogs, butterflies, and ocean animals will make readers wonder if what they are seeing is truly real!
This informative book introduces young readers to the defining characteristics of the various groups of animals that make up the animal kingdom. The bodies of many animals, including several types of mammals, fish, reptiles, birds, and arthropods, are described in simple, easy-to-understand text. Children will learn about invertebrate and vertebrate animals, warm-blooded and cold-blooded animals, how animals move, the habitats of different animals, and how various animals find food.
This fascinating book uses pictures, illustrations, and easy-to-read text to introduce the characteristics of birds to young readers. Birds of all Kinds focuses on facts about birds bodies and behavior in a way that will make this book a delight to read.
Rodents have teeth called incisors that never stop growing! They must grind their teeth or gnaw on things to keep the teeth from growing too long. Kids will be eager to "sink their teeth" into the intriguing facts in Guinea Pigs and other Rodents. This book explores many of their favorite kinds of rodents, including rats, mice, guinea pigs, beavers, and squirrels. Engaging text and vivid images help children understand how rodents build different types of homes in various habitats, what kinds of foods rodents eat, and which rodents hibernate in winter.
Numbats, opossums, planigales and quolls - not to mention marsupial moles! - are some of the more unusual animals featured in this engaging and highly illustrated ABC book. The imaginative and playful text will capture a child's interest in these strange animals as well as other more familiar favorites, from butterflies to elephants.
Earth has more than a million species of insects! There are helpful insects, harmful insects, flying insects, insects that work together, endangered insects, and some really weird insects! This fun book with great photographs will delight children and encourage them to identify insects in their world. It will also give them information to write their own books about insects!
Bobbie Kalman presents some of the most endangered animals on Earth: rhinos, bats, butterflies, penguins, gorillas, monk seals, komodo dragons, and tigers, to name just a few. This beautifully photographed volume also explains the various classifications of endangerment, as well as the major reasons why some animals are facing extinction.
Kids will be shocked to learn that arthropods outnumber all other animal species combined! They will also be fascinated by the variety of shapes, sizes, colors, and behaviors found among these invertebrates. Labeled diagrams and startling close-up photography will introduce concepts including the similarities and differences among insects, arachnids, myriapods, and crustaceans, the functions and features of an exoskeleton, molting, metamorphosis, and other interesting body facts, and the crucial function of arthropods in food chains and webs.
Marsupials are the only mammals that have a pouch on their body in which they carry their young. Most of these amazing animals live in Australia, where they have adapted to the harsh conditions of life in the outback. In What is a Marsupial? children will learn astounding facts about marsupials, including the important differences between marsupials and placentals, how kangaroos, koalas, wombats, Tasmanian devils, opossums, and bilbies are related, how marsupials reproduce and raise their young, the ways in which they hunt and feed, and why some marsupials are in danger.
Amphibian means two lives since these animals spend the first part of their lives underwater and the rest on land. From flying tree frogs to slithering caecilians, kids will be captivated by this slimy animal group in What is an Amphibian? Young readers will discover the amphibian family tree, an amphibian's body, special skin and senses, how they move and what they eat, water- versus land-dwelling species, their life cycle and parental care, and defending themselves.
