Uncle John's Creature Feature Bathroom Reader For Kids Only! Read online

  SLIP AND SLIDE

  At the Oklahoma Zoo the keepers had just finished mopping the floor of the orangutan’s cage when the ape, who was sulking in the corner, stood up with his hands out, palms down, took a running start, and slid across the floor, as if he were surfing.

  PLAYING WITH BONGO

  It seems there’s a practical joker in every crowd, even at the Sacramento Zoo. When Brigette, a slightly pudgy gorilla, got stuck in a rubber tub in her cage, her mate Bongo rushed to her side—not to help her, but to tickle her. As Brigette struggled to get out of the tub and away from his tickling, Bongo and their son Fossey collapsed on the floor in laughter.

  GOING APE

  Zippy was a spirited chimp from New Orleans who decided to sneak out of his owner’s house and have a night on the town. Hours later, the police found him riding around in a van with four teenagers. The teenagers said they’d found Zippy outside a convenience store. He was wearing tennis shoes and blue underwear, and smoking a cigar.

  HOLLYWOOD HOUNDS

  LASSIE starred in nine movies, a radio show that lasted six years, and a TV series that ran for 19 years.

  Lassie is supposed to be a girl, but all of the dogs who have played her were males.

  There have been nine Lassies.

  The original Lassie was named Pal. He made seven Lassie movies from 1947 to 1951, and starred in the first TV episode of Lassie at the age of 14.

  BENJI’S real name was Higgins. He got his start in the ’60s TV show Petticoat Junction and came out of retirement at age 14 to star in the Benji movies.

  TOTO in The Wizard of Oz was a cairn terrier named Terry. He got the part because he looked just like the dog in the pictures from the book.

  RIN TIN TIN had been rejected by every studio in Hollywood when Warner Bros., a studio that was about to go broke, took a chance on him in 1922. The success of his movies saved the studio.

  FRAIDY PIGGY

  Ever wonder what’s hiding under the bed or in the closet? It probably never occurred to you to wonder what’s going to come in through the back door.

  An elderly couple in Minden, Germany, had just settled in for the night when a wild boar crashed through their patio door and jumped in bed with them. “I thought a bomb had dropped,” said Andreas Janik, 71. “I sat up and there was a wild pig in bed, tusks and all.” The pig was being chased by a neighbor’s Yorkshire terrier. The Janiks had to chase the dog off before they could get the pig to leave. “I can’t believe it was afraid of such a little dog.”

  I VANT TO SUCK YOUR BLOOD!

  VAMPIRE BATS aren’t dangerous to people. However, if you’re a cow, a pig, or a horse—look out. These three-inch-long bats attack while their victims are asleep. They land near the animal, then crawl over the ground and try to find a furless part of the body, like an ankle or the neck. Finally they make a small slit-like wound in the animal and suck out the blood. A vampire bat drinks more than its own weight in blood every night.

  GHOST PETS

  Man’s best friend is a...ghost?

  PET CEMETERY

  If late one night you happen to be passing the Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia, stop and listen closely. You might hear the happy barks of ghost pets scampering around their owner’s grave. The people of Richmond say they belong to author Ellen Glasgow who left orders to have her dogs exhumed from her backyard and buried with her when she died.

  GHOSTLY WARNING

  Norma Kresgal was sound asleep in her home in New York when the barking of her collie, Corky, suddenly awakened her. But that wasn’t possible. Corky was dead! Yet his warning was so vivid that she got up to see what was the matter and discovered that her house was on fire. Her dead pet had saved her life.

  NOW YOU SEE HIM, NOW YOU DON’T

  At King John’s Hunting Lodge in Somerset, England, a tabby cat enters a wood-paneled room through a closed door, curls up happily on the rug, and then…disappears.

  THE BEAR FACTS

  How can such a fierce creature be so cute? Fortunately, you’ll never bump into a polar bear…unless you live near the North Pole (or go to the zoo).

  DID YOU KNOW?

  • A polar bear is the only mammal with hair on the soles of its feet.

  • Polar bears are the tallest bears (10 feet).

  • All polar bears are left-handed.

  • Polar bears don’t drink water.

  WHITE OUT

  Polar bears are white, right? Wrong. A polar bear’s fur is made of hollow, colorless hairs that transmit ultraviolet rays to the bear’s skin and reflect the light. This makes for great camouflage. When a polar bear stalks its prey, it hides its black nose with its paw or covers it in snow so it will completely blend in with its environment.

  It doesn’t always work out, though. At the San Diego Zoo, three polar bears turned green when an algae colony moved into their hair shafts. Zookeepers brought back their white appearance with a little water and a lot of salt.

  WILD AND WOOLLY FACT

  Polar bears can swim 60 miles without stopping. They swim with only their front paws—they hold their back legs straight out to steer.

  FROZEN FOODS

  Cool food facts from the

  far, frozen North.

  BEAR SHARE

  • The Siberian brown bear eats only fish heads and throws away the bodies.

  • The Siberian white-breasted bear eats only the fish bodies and throws away the heads.

  OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!

  The Arctic fox bites the heads off birds before burying them for their winter reserves.

  ARCTIC ANTI-FREEZE

  Most animals don’t eat moss because it’s hard to digest and has little nutritional value. But reindeer love it. Why? It has a special chemical that keeps the reindeer’s body fluids from freezing, just like antifreeze keeps water in cars from freezing.

  Q: WHY DON’T POLAR BEARS EAT PENGUINS?

  Penguins live in the Southern Hemisphere—Antarctica, Australia, New Zealand, and South America. But polar bears live only in the Northern Hemisphere—northern Canada, Russia, and the Arctic Circle.

  HISTORY MAKERS

  It’s reigning cats and dogs!

  KING CANINE. In the 11th century, the king of Norway took revenge on his subjects—who had once ousted him—by putting his dog, Saur, on the throne. The dog reigned for three years.

  CAT-ASTROPHE. The Battle of Agincourt (1415) was one of England’s greatest triumphs. Led by King Henry V, the English defeated a much larger French army. How? They brought cats into battle to keep rats away from their food, but the French didn’t. Legend has it that the night before the big battle, rats got into the French armory and gnawed through the archers’ bowstrings. When the battle was fought, the French had no arrow power and King Henry—and his cats—won.

  DOG EXPLORES AMERICA. From 1803 to 1806, explorers Lewis and Clark mapped the western United States with the help of Seaman, a 150-pound Newfoundland. The pooch was a respected member of the expedition team who warned them of charging buffalo and bears. His adventures were reported in the explorers’ diaries and in the book The Captain’s Dog.

  BIG SCAREDY-CAT. The ancient Greek conqueror Alexander the Great was so afraid of cats that he would faint at the sight of one.

  LION TALES

  Knights of old often put images of lions on their shields and flags. Every pose had a French name, because French was the language of chivalry.

  1. Lion rampant (raised forepaws)

  2. Lion statant guardant (standing, full face)

  3. Lion rampant guardant (raised forepaws, full face)

  4. Lion passant (walking, right leg raised)

  5. Lion statant (standing)

  6. Lion passant guardant (walking, full face)

  7. Lion sejant (sitting)

  8. Lion sejant rampant (sitting up on forelegs)

  9. Lion couchant (lying down)

  10. Lion salient (leaping)

  11. Lion coward (tail between legs)

&n
bsp; 12. Lion queue fourchée (double tailed)

  NAME THAT HORSE

  APPALOOSA. This type of spotted horse, first bred by the Nez Perce tribe in Oregon and Washington, was originally called “a Palouse horse” after the Palouse River. That became “a Palousey,” then “Appaloosey,” and finally, Appaloosa.

  MORGAN. As partial payment of a debt, in 1790 a one-year-old colt was given to a Vermont schoolteacher named Justin Morgan. The colt was the founding sire of the Morgan breed—pony-sized with large eyes and a white stripe down the center of the face.

  CLYDESDALE. These large draft horses (horses used for pulling heavy loads) with fringed hooves were named after Scotland’s Clydesdale district. They are probably best known as the team that pulls the Budweiser beer wagon in TV commercials and parades.

  PERCHERON. In 1823 a horse named Jean Le Blanc was born in the Perche region of France, and all of today’s Percheron bloodlines trace directly to this horse. Originally the Percheron were used to carry knights into battle; now they are draft animals.

  LIPIZZAN. In 1580 Archduke Charles II of Austria established a stud farm in Lipizza (now known as Lipica, Slovenia). He imported the best Spanish, Andalusian, Barbs, and Berber horses and bred them with the local Karst horse. The result is the famous leaping white Lipizzan stallions.

  MUSTANG. The Spanish brought these horses to Mexico in the 16th century, but many of them escaped and headed north. They soon formed herds and roamed the western plains of the United States. The word mustang comes from the Spanish mesteno which means “stray or riderless horse.”

  ARABIAN. Considered by many horse lovers to be the finest breed, the Arabian has been bred for centuries by the Bedouin people of Syria, Iran, Iraq, and the Arabian peninsula.

  WILD AND WOOLLY FACT

  The smallest horse breed is the Falabella—a miniature from Argentina. The tallest of the breed stands less than 34 inches at the shoulder.

  ANIMAL NEWS

  CATS PREDICT EARTHQUAKE!

  According to James P. Berkland, a geologist from California, there are many ways to predict earthquakes. When he predicted the 1989 Loma Prieta quake, he studied the tides and positions of the sun and moon. But he also studied the number of lost cat ads in the local papers. After ten full years of scientific observation, Berkland concluded that “cats tend to vanish just before a major tremor.”

  Is he right? In 1976 the people in the northern Italian village of Friuli noticed that their cats were acting strangely. Many of them were running around scratching on doors and howling to get out. Once out, they raced to get out of town. Three hours later the area was hit by a major earthquake.

  WAR HEROES

  They’re trained to recognize booby traps and land mines, warn troops of ambushes, and even sacrifice their lives to save their “fellow soldiers.”

  CHIPS

  When this U.S. Army dog and his handler, Private John Rowell, landed in Sicily in 1943, they were pinned down on the beach by a hail of machine-gun fire from an enemy bunker. Then Chips, a German shepherd–husky mix, shook off his leash and charged. The enemy soldiers sprayed bullets at the attacking dog, nicking his shoulder and putting one in his hip. But nothing stopped Chips. He tore into the bunker and, moments later, four terrified enemy soldiers surrendered. One of them still had Chips clamped solidly onto his neck. Chips was awarded the Silver Star for bravery and a Purple Heart for wounds received in action. Disney even made a TV movie about Chips in 1990, called Chips the War Dog.

  GANDER

  This Newfoundland dog fought with Canadian troops against the Japanese during World War II. During a fierce battle on Christmas Eve in 1941, some Canadian soldiers lay wounded on the field when the enemy lobbed a live grenade at them. Gander picked up the grenade and carried it away. The dog was killed instantly when it exploded. “Was it a dog playing a dog game? I don’t think so,” said Jeremy Swanson of the Canadian War Museum. “Gander had seen many grenades explode in the days leading up to that moment. He saw something dangerous and took it away from his friends.” Gander received the Silver Medal for bravery under fire.

  SORTER

  Two thousand years ago in ancient Greece, invaders used the cover of darkness to mount a sneak attack on the citadel of Corinth. What the attackers didn’t know was that the Corinthians had set 50 watchdogs on guard along the seashore. When the invaders stepped out of their boats, the dogs set on them like lions. The outnumbered dogs fought bravely until all were killed but one—Sorter. He ran back into town, barking a warning that gave the Corinthians time to mount a defense and repel the invaders. The people were so grateful that they raised a monument to honor Sorter and the 49 loyal dogs who died that day.

  DUMB DOG TRICKS

  BAD HAIR DAY

  The police were called in when a French woman’s guard dog refused to let her into her own home. She’d gone to the beauty parlor and her new hairdo changed her looks so much that the dog didn’t recognize her.

  MOBILE MEAL

  What do you do when you can’t find your cell phone? Dial the number and listen for the ring. That’s what a gas station attendant in Turkey did…and was shocked to hear his dog’s stomach ringing! Apparently his pup had swallowed his Nokia.

  ANIMALS TO THE RESCUE

  BABY ON BOARD

  A woman in Raducaneni, Romania, nearly fainted when her sheepdog came home with a newborn baby. She was afraid the pooch, Vasile, had stolen the child from someone’s home. But actually, Vasile had found the baby abandoned in a field two miles away. The dog carried the child home in his mouth, then barked and scratched at the door until someone came to help.

  HEAD 'EM UP

  In 1996 a farmer in Carmarthen, Wales, was tending a sick calf when a neighbor’s bull attacked him. The bull beat Donald Mottram senseless, stomping on his head and body until he lost consciousness. When he came to later, he found that his cows had formed a protective circle around him. Led by Daisy, the “bell cow” of the herd, the cows kept up an impenetrable shield against the raging bull, which charged them over and over but never broke through their ranks. Finally the farmer was able to crawl for help. When asked to explain why his cows came to his defense, Mottram said, “I have always treated the animals reasonably and in return, they have looked after me.”

  WHO LET THE DOG OUT?

  Here’s one pooch who doesn’t wait for a car ride when he feels the need for speed.

  BOARDER BULLDOG

  Tyson is an English bulldog from Huntington Beach, California, who loves to skateboard. This major boarder taught himself how to skate when he was just one year old. He runs with three paws on the road and steers with his fourth paw on the skateboard. When Tyson gets going fast enough, he hops on the board and skates like a pro.

  MORRIS THE CAT

  The year was 1968. Morris the Cat was moments away from execution in a Chicago animal shelter when animal handler Bob Martwick spotted him and saw right away that this tabby cat had star quality. He took Morris from the shelter, straight to Hollywood. Soon the 9Lives cat food company made Morris the “finicky eater” star of their TV commercials. Morris became the darling of the talk-show circuit, starring in the movie Shamus with Burt Reynolds, hosting his own TV special, and even “co-authoring” three books on cat care. But the tough tabby from Chicago never forgot his roots—he toured the country promoting responsible pet adoptions, pet care, and his favorite food, 9Lives. The company donated millions of dollars in cat food and cash to shelters across the United States. The original Morris died in 1979 but his successors (the current Morris is Number 4) carry on his legend. His picture still hangs on the wall of the Chicago shelter where the greatest cat star of all time was first discovered.

  CATTLE CALL

  Did you know you can lead a cow upstairs but not down? Here are more quirky bovine facts.

  EW, GROSS!

  Cows clean their noses with their tongues.

  YOU RANG?

  Some Japanese farmers have a modern way to let their cows know when
it’s chow time: pagers. They hang one around each cow’s neck. At dinnertime, the beeper goes off and the cows head for the trough.

  BEST-DRESSED COWS

  British farmers dress their cows in colorfully striped leggings, but not because they want them to be fashionable. It’s so drivers can see the cows more easily at night.

  SOME PIG!

  It’s official: Pigs are the smartest animals on the farm.

  GAME BOYS

  Pigs do tricks, respond to verbal commands, and even play computer games. In one study some porkers used their snouts to move the joystick to shoot at targets and had a hit rate of 80 percent.