Category: Animals

Tiger Facts For Kids

Julia

Tiger facts for kids

Tigers are the largest members of the cat family. They are solitary animals that live in tropical forests, primarily hunting other animals for food. Tigers have a wide range of habitats and can be found in forested areas, grasslands, swamps, and wetlands.

They typically hunt deer and wild pigs but will also attack domestic livestock such as cows and buffaloes when they become too numerous or threaten their habitat.

Despite being classified as endangered tigers still exist in many countries including India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Thailand, Bhutan and Russia.

 

Tiger facts for kids
Tiger facts for kids

What are the different types of tigers?

Siberian Tigers

Siberian Tigers live primarily in eastern Russia’s birch forests, though some exist in China and North Korea.

They have the advantage of huge forests to roam around in.

Bengal Tigers

Bengal tigers are the largest of all Indian big cats and can reach up to 3.3 meters in length, weighing 300-700 kilograms. They have a lifespan that ranges from 15 to 20 years and lives mostly in India’s tropical rainforests with other wildlife like leopards, elephants, deer and monkeys. Bengal tigers may be spotted along Sri Lanka’s wild southern coastlines while basking on seashores or fishing for crabs.

Black Tigers

A black tiger is a rare variant of the Bengal Tiger. It has been reported in India but it’s not well known that there are other black tigers around the world as well. The most famous one was born in 2007, which led to her being named Black Panther by zoo staff and visitors alike.

White Tigers

The white tiger or bleached tiger is also a variation of the Bengal tiger, Siberian tiger and hybrids between the two. It can be found in some places in India.

What Do Tigers Eat?

Tigers are carnivores and their diet consists mostly of large prey like deer, wild boars and elephant calves.

Tiger sitting watching
Tiger sitting watching

Baby Tiger Facts

Baby tigers are called cubs. They are born blind and depend on their mother for protection. Tigers have a gestation period of about 100 days, which means that they will be delivered in the late summer or early fall.

Females usually produce up to six cubs in one litter. After 15 months old, the eldest tiger will leave the mother to find its own territory and mate.

How Far Can You Hear A Lion’s Roar?

A tiger’s roar is a low-pitched, deep sound. It can be heard at 3 to 4 kilometres away.

Tigers typically use their roar to announce themselves when they’re hunting for food or scaring away rivals.

A tiger’s roar is a deep, resonating sound produced by the vibration of air passing through its vocal cords. This noise can be heard from some distance and may serve as an indication of where tigers are located in forest areas.

Furthermore, tigers roar to communicate with other members of their species. The range for tiger’s home depends on the abundance of prey in its territory and sex.

Tiger in snow
Tiger in snow

How Large is a Tiger’s Range

Tigers are the most powerful of all land predators. They have a wide range and those found in Manchuria, China, range from 500 to 4,000 kilometres.

Male tigers mark trees by spraying urine or anal gland secretions. and they mark their territory with feces. They also use claw marks to draw boundaries for themselves and others.

A young male tiger acquires territory either by seeking out an area devoid of other males or fighting for it with another male (often to the death).

How Fast Can a Tiger Run?

A tiger can run up to 22 miles an hour. They are also capable of swimming at speeds of 6 mph and jumping up to 18 ft in the air.

Why Do Tigers Have Stripes?

Tigers have stripes because they are a unique feature to this species.

Tigers have stripes to help them camouflage. Predators can’t see the tiger’s stripes, so they think it is a tree or shrub and won’t attack.

Tigers have stripes because they use them to blend in with the trees. They use their brown and orange colouration as camouflage against hunters, who would instead see a tiger’s striped form if it was hunting alone.

Tigers have their stripes for camouflage. Without them, they would be easy to spot and hunt. Sadly, hunting and habitat loss has put the tiger population at risk of extinction today!

Tiger size

Tigers are the largest living cats on Earth and they can grow up to 3 meters in length and weigh as much as 670 pounds.

White tiger laying down
White tiger laying down

How long do tigers live?

In general, tigers live in the wild for 10-15 years. In captivity, they can live up to 25 years old.

Living and hunting

Most tigers spend time living and hunting alone. Although tigers in the wild are typically solitary animals, they have been known to form coalitions with other males for short periods of time.

Most tigers like to live alone and/or with their spouse, but do not hold established territories.

Tigers do not have territories that they exert full dominance of. Giant cats walk for an hour between hunting zones in their territory, staying near water sources to hunt for fish, deer, crocodiles, turtles, frogs, lizards and more.

Females will only hunt when raising their young and both parents provide protection from predators while they are hunting.

Are tigers still endangered?

Tigers are endangered because of illegal wildlife trade, human-wildlife conflict, habitat loss/fragmentation, and poaching.

There are still less than 3,000 tigers left in the wild today. However, recent conservation work has halted the decline of global tiger numbers by protecting their habitats and focusing on captive breeding which has helped to boost population levels over recent years.

How Many Tigers Are Left In The World

Despite the fact that there are only 3,900 tigers left in the wild, they’re not going extinct anytime soon. They’ve reached a low at which it’s difficult to see their numbers increase because of human interaction and habitat loss. The number has been slowly decreasing since 1900 when over 100,000 tigers were roaming free in India alone.

There are currently 6 surviving tiger subspecies in the world, all of which are endangered. The Siberian tiger is thought to be one of the most genetically diverse tigers in existence with an estimated 2,000-3,500 individuals remaining. There is also a growing population of captive-bred tigers for conservation purposes and these animals make up about 5% of the global population.

The Sumatran tiger is found only on the Indonesian island of Sumatra; their numbers have dwindled dramatically due to habitat loss and poaching. The South China tiger is found in southern China, Vietnam, Laos, Burma, Thailand and Malaysia; the largest population of these tigers is estimated to be between 1-4 thousand individuals.

The Indochinese tiger occupies a small range of forested areas in Cambodia, Indonesia and Vietnam; their numbers are unknown but they are thought to be declining due to habitat loss. The Malayan tiger has an extensive range across southern Asia including India; their numbers have declined significantly due to habitat loss.

The Siberian tiger, found in Eastern Russia, China and North Korea, are thought to be declining due to habitat loss and poaching for body parts. The Bengal tiger’s numbers have declined significantly due to poaching for body parts.

Chinese New Year – Tiger – 2022

The Chinese new year is also known as the Lunar calendar, and it has 12 different animals representing each lunar year. The 2022 Year of the Tiger is part of this cycle.

 

Tiger Cams

https://www.edinburghzoo.org.uk/webcams/tiger-cam/

https://sdzsafaripark.org/cams/tiger-cam

Webcams

How to Draw Videos

How To Draw A Realistic Tiger Head

How To Draw A Tiger

How to Draw a Tiger Cub

If you are looking for something more cartoonish try this one:

Tiger crafts

For younger children

https://www.activityvillage.co.uk/tiger-crafts

Tiger dot-to-dot and colouring

https://www.connectthedots101.com/Animals/Tiger-connect-the-dots – 24 pictures

Tiger Quizzes

For kids

https://www.cbc.ca/kidscbc2/the-feed/tiger-quiz

https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/quizzes/bp-are-you-a-tiger-expert-quiz

For older youngsters

https://www.wwf.org.uk/node/40636

Videos about Tigers

Tigers’ Teeth Are LONGER THAN HUMAN FINGERS! | Wild Bites | BBC Earth Kids

Excellent video may suit 8 -12 year olds

Amazing Animals from National Geographic – Kids

This is a very short, slightly amusing video

5 facts about Tigers

This is an excellent video for perhaps 6 – 9-year-olds. There are more than 5 facts as related facts are also talked about in this video.

Tigers for Kids: Learn All About Tigers – FreeSchool

Tigers for Kids

This video would probably only suit children under about 7.

How The Tiger Got Its Stripes

A folk story from Vietnam about how the Tiger got its stripes

Other web pages you might like to visit to find out more about tigers

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/facts/siberian-tiger – great videos on this page about Siberian tigers. You do have to sign up to view them.

Educational Resources about Tigers

https://www.wwf.org.uk/get-involved/schools/tiger-tales

https://www.worldwildlife.org/teaching-resources/toolkits/tiger-toolkit

 

Fun Facts About Elephants

Julia

 

Fun Facts About Elephants

Elephants are the largest and heaviest land animals that exist on Earth at the moment. They’re probably also the most intelligent domesticated animal. They have the longest noses of any animal. They have the longest teeth, these are known as tusks. Their gestation period is the longest and it may be that they have the longest memories as well. This article will help you learn some other fun facts about elephants.

Elephants have lived all over the earth, everywhere except Australia and Antarctica.  They have lived in rainforests, deserts and glaciers.

A young elephant

Species of elephant

There were possibly 300 species of elephant. We now just have 2 left, the African elephant and the Asian elephant. There are two subspecies of the African elephant, the bush elephant and the round-eared elephant. Then there are three subspecies of the Asian elephant, the Sri Lankan, Indian and Sumatran elephants.

Family organisation

Male and female elephants (also known as bulls and cows) don’t live together. Usually, bulls will live together and the cows and their offspring will live together. The cows and calves (which are baby elephants) are usually in a herd which is led by an older elephant who will be a grandmother or maybe even a great-grandmother.

Mammoths and mastodons.

Many people will have heard of the woolly mammoth and know that it is one of the elephants’ extinct relatives. A woolly mammoth was found by a fisherman in Russia in 1799. It was frozen in a block of ice. Many other woolly mammoth tusks have been found in this area.

In North America, there were also some mammoths found but there were more mastodon remains found. Mastodons were similar to mammoths but they were shaped slightly differently. The mammoth had back which sloped downwards towards their tails, whereas mastodons have backs which are more level.

A woolly mammoth

 

Ivory boomerang – Poland 23000 years ago

Stone Age tools weapons

Elephant feet

Elephants have large round feet and are designed to walk quietly around the forest when they want to. As they put their feet down on the ground the size of their feet expands slightly. Most elephants have five toes on each foot, but some African elephants only have four toes. However, their toes do not stick out like ours do but are covered in skin. Their “toenails” are attached to the front of the round foot rather than their toe bones and look a bit like hooves.

The Elephant’s Trunk

An elephant’s trunk is a bit like having a combined arm and a nose.

The trunk will suck up water and then put it into its mouth so that it doesn’t have to put its head right down to the water to drink. You will also see elephants squirt water all over their bodies and also each other as a game.

The end of the African elephants’ trunk seems to operate almost like a finger and thumb. It can pick things up and even take grit out of its eyes.

The Asian elephant seems to have one finger on its trunk so it picks things up by curling its trunk around them.

The elephant can move its trunk in any direction and it can also stretch its trunk to reach things.

Tusks

Tusks are the elephant’s front two teeth but they have grown much bigger than the other teeth. They can grow about 17 cm or 8 inches per year. They are used as tools and weapons and sometimes the elephants will sharpen one or both of them to make them more effective.

Unfortunately, many elephants have been killed for their tusks, also known as ivory, as poachers have been able to sell them for a lot of money.  Tusks don’t wear out and last a whole lifetime unless they get damaged.

An ivory boomerang was found in Poland. It was thought to be 23,000 years ago

Ivory was used in the Stone Age both to make tools and weapons.

The Other Teeth

Elephants also have to lower teeth which they use to grind up their food. These teeth do get worn out and they get replaced about 6 times in an elephant’s lifetime. Each replacement is bigger than the last. Final teeth will be about the size of house bricks.

Elephants are constantly eating

Ok, not constantly! But for about three-quarters of the day and night elephants are collecting and eating their food. Elephants eat from 100 to 200 kg of food in the wild. They eat plants, they are herbivores, but they can’t eat cellulose which makes up a lot of what plants are made of. This is why elephant poo doesn’t contain much undigested plant fibre or seeds.

Elephants like bananas, other fruits and sugar cane so they are happy when they find these but they also trample these crops and push over the trees. This is a major problem for the people who have cultivated these as they can have their livelihood destroyed.

Elephant Quiz

Watch this video and see if you can answer these questions?

Can you name 5 things that elephants eat?

How old are the male elephants when they stop living with their female relatives?

For how long are female elephants pregnant?

How much does a baby elephant weigh when it is born?

Which elephants can’t run?  Why can’t they?

What is special about elephants and mirrors?

How do elephants protect their skin from sunlight?

 

Some Baby Elephant Clips

 

Some Elephants Running to Greet their Friend

 

 

Elephants Can Hear Through Their Feet!

The first minute of this video gives you an overview, carry on with the video if you what to know more about the science behind this.

Dolphin Facts for Kids

Julia

Dolphin Facts for Kids

Dolphin

The great thing about working with your child at home is that you can pick up on their interests.  Many children like dolphins and so I have decided to do this page on dolphin facts for kids and how that might be the start of a project.

I loved dolphins from an early age and enjoyed the children’s TV programme “Flipper”.  That ages me!  Flipper was a bottle-nosed dolphin who looked like this one.

Start with a video clip.

There are lots of video clips you could choose from.

Here is one from YouTube called ”Five Facts About Dolphins”:

Here are some of the facts that are mentioned. There are 43 species of dolphin, including 38 marine varieties and 5 river varieties.  Dolphins can swim at 34 miles an hour. Killer whales, which are a type of dolphin can be about 32 ft long. Dolphins are mammals not fish, and dolphins breathe through their blowholes whereas fish breathe through their gills.

You could just watch the video and then discuss it and see how many of the facts your child picked up on.  Or you could write out some questions first so that they’re listening out for the answers and writing them down.

Basic facts on a webpage

Here I’m going to give you some websites that should be fairly accessible to a lot of children and some questions to go with them.

You can copy and paste the questions into a Word document or something similar and then the child will be able to answer the questions from the information on the website.  It might be interesting to see how many questions are they can answer before looking at the website and use that to check there answers. Bear in mind that not all websites will give you the same information so you need to decide what you think is the most likely right answer, or whether you decide that nobody really knows the right answer.

Equally, you could start with one question and a suggested website and then your child could tell you what else they found out that was interesting. You could then follow up with further questions or perhaps give them a fact that you know and they can tell you if they already knew that from their reading.  They might like to give you a test. You can decide how much of an expert you can pretend to be.

http://www.sciencekids.co.nz/sciencefacts/animals/dolphin.html

How clever do you think dolphins are?

Are dolphins vegetarian?

What whale is really a dolphin?

Which dolphin is the most common?

What are male,  female and young dolphins called?

How many individuals are there usually in a dolphin school or pod?

Give some reasons as to why dolphins are so popular with humans.

How do dolphins breathe?

Write something about dolphins’ eyesight and hearing?

How to dolphins communicate with each other?

How do dolphins find objects?

Name one type of dolphin which may have become extinct.

What do humans do that is dangerous for dolphins?

 

https://dolphins.org/kids_dolphin_facts

Dolphins live in the sea. Do they drink the water?

How many teeth do dolphins have?

What do dolphins use their teeth to do?

Can dolphins see at night?

Do dolphins see in colour?

Can dolphins see underwater?

Can dolphins see above water?

This is one of my favourite questions. Do dolphins have hair?

In what way are dolphins different from fish?

http://uk.whales.org/whales-and-dolphins/facts-about-dolphins

https://defenders.org/dolphin/basic-facts

 

More Videos

All About Dolphins for Kids: Dolphins for Children – FreeSchool

This video is a bit longer than the last one. It is 5 minutes long. It recaps on quite a lot of the answers to the questions that we’ve got above and it gives some extra information.

Here’s another dolphin video – also about 5 minutes long.

This video is for older children and has some quizzes and lesson materials to go with it.

Ed-Ted lesson material –  https://ed.ted.com/lessons/how-smart-are-dolphins-lori-marino

Does it help dolphins to help humans?

Here is a fascinating article about dolphins that have been helping humans fish since 1847

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/phenomena/2012/05/01/dolphins-that-help-humans-to-catch-fish-form-tighter-social-networks/

 

Is your child ready for some quizzes?

Try these:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/quizzes/bp-dolphin-true-or-false – Just six questions but will you know all the answers?

http://www.funtrivia.com/playquiz/quiz2430881bd5088.html 10 questions

http://easyscienceforkids.com/free-interactive-dolphins-quiz-fun-science-quiz-for-kids/

http://www.dolphinsfilm.com/learn/Quiz1.htm

This one is harder but it marks itself as it goes along, so you get to learn at the same time.

http://quipoquiz.com/quiz/dolphins/

More challenging questions, but again you get the answers as you go along so it is interesting to do.  The questions are randomised so you get some of the same questions and some new ones if you do it again.

https://www.purposegames.com/game/dolphin-quiz-game#

(I couldn’t do all these and I couldn’t see the answers.)

At “All The Tests” you can do other quizzes or create your own.

Would you like to know how to draw a dolphin?

Try following the instructions on this video:

Or take a look at this page http://www.wedrawanimals.com/how-to-draw-a-dolphin/  or http://www.hellokids.com/c_26032/drawing-for-kids/drawing-tutorials-step-by-step/animals/how-to-draw-a-dolphin-for-kids .

This one is a lot more complex https://design.tutsplus.com/tutorials/how-to-draw-a-dolphin-step-by-step–cms-28672

 

Some other fun Dolphin activities

http://www.dolphinkind.com/dolphin_fun.html – a variety of different activities.

http://www.dltk-kids.com/animals/mdolphin.html – make a dolphin model.

 

For you as an adult

A teacher’s guide – this is to go with a particular film – but it does have a lot of general information in it.

http://www.dolphinsfilm.com/learn/DolphinsTG.pdf

An article from the Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/11/china-extinct-dolphin-returned-yangtze-river-baiji

This was one of my favourite books as a youngster:

The Day of the Dolphin by Robert Merle https://amzn.to/2IDZsLx  I suspect it’s rather dated!

There was also a film to go with it. The Day of the Dolphin [ 1973 ] by George C. Scott https://amzn.to/2IBdpd2

Some Children’s Dolphin Books from Amazon

Winter’s Tail: How One Little Dolphin Learned to Swim Again by Craig Hatkoff https://amzn.to/2rYeaqa

Everything Dolphins: Dolphin Facts, Photos, and Fun that Will Make You Flip  https://amzn.to/2ICoWbW

Dolphins: Amazing Pictures & Fun Facts on Animals in Nature (Our Amazing World Series)  https://amzn.to/2KHMMUf

Dolphin Boy by Michael Morpurgo https://amzn.to/2J0DHZO

 

Let me know what you thought of this article, what else you would have liked to see here, and any requests you have for other articles.  Just drop me a comment below.