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When you see a snowy owl, it’s clear how the bird probably got its name: they’re snow-white. Males are generally whiter than females. As males grow older, they get whiter. The females never become completely white—remaining brownish with darker markings. These large owls mainly live in the Arctic in open, treeless areas called tundra. Snowy owls perch on the ground or on short posts. From there they patiently watch for prey. Their favorite target is lemmings—small mouselike rodents—but they also hunt for other small rodents, rabbits, birds, and fish. Snowy owls have excellent eyesight, but they obviously can’t see their prey when it’s underneath snow or a thick layer of plants. To capture those meals, the owl relies on its other keen sense: hearing. In flight, snowy owls generally cruise low to the ground. Once they spot their prey, they approach it from the air, and snatch it up using the large, sharp talons, or claws, on their feet. Most owls sleep during the day and hunt at night, but the snowy owl is active during the day, especially in the summertime. They tend to be most active at dawn and dusk. Snowy owl pairs usually mate for life. Female snowy owls lay from 3 to 11 eggs at a time, in a nest built on the ground. When there is plenty of food available, snowy owls tend to lay more eggs than when food is scarce. Lemmings make up the main part of the snowy owls‘ diet, and lemming population numbers rise and fall naturally. Sometimes, if there is not enough prey around to feed baby owls, the adult pair won’t lay any eggs at all until the supply of food improves. The female snowy owl sits on her eggs until they hatch. The male feeds her while she keeps their eggs warm and safe. After about one month, the eggs hatch. Babies are covered in soft white down when they hatch. As new feathers replace the down, the birds become light brown. The young leave the nest less than a month after they hatch. By the time they’re about a month and a half old, the young owls can fly well, but their parents take care of them for another ten weeks or more.
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Watch out! Learn how this „unlucky“ day got such a bad reputation.
The Salem Witch Trials Find out what started the witch hunt of 1692.

Get pictures and fun facts about eight weird ice cream flavors.
But you won’t find feathers in the scoops—the flavors just contain the things these

Conservationists create parks to give this species another chance to thrive.
Find out how.

Atlantic puffins are birds that live at sea most of their lives. They fly through the air like most birds, but they also „fly“ through the water, using their wings as paddles. As they swim, they use their webbed feet to steer, much as a boat uses a rudder.  Puffins eat small fish—such as sand eels and herring—which they hunt underwater. They generally stay underwater for 30 seconds or less, but are able to dive 200 feet deep and stay down for up to a minute. Well adapted for their home in the water, puffins are also speedy in the air. They flap their wings up to 400 times a minute, speeding along in the air at 55 miles an hour—as fast as a car on a highway (How many times can you flap your arms in one minute?) . As a puffin matures, its beak and feet change from a dull gray color to bright orange. In the spring and summer, thousands of puffins gather in colonies on the coasts and islands of the North Atlantic Ocean. They stay in colonies to limit their chances of being eaten by the herring gulls that fly overhead. At the ages of 4-6, pairs of puffins often become mates for life, finding each other at their breeding colony year after year. They show affection by rubbing and tapping beaks. The pair often uses the same burrow they used the year before. Using their beaks and claws, puffins build their burrows between two boulders or in a rocky crevice. They line the burrow with feathers and grass before laying the egg that will incubate for 42 days. A baby puffin is known as a chick or puffling. When it first hatches, it looks like a furry ball of feathers. As it gets older, it will grow sturdy and smooth feathers to help it swim and fly. Born on North Atlantic islands, pufflings leave their burrows after 45 days. They won’t return until it is their turn to lay eggs. A puffling eats so much food that both the mother and father have to supply it with fish. In one day a parent may dive 276 times, bringing back 10 fish each time. The puffling swallows the fish head first and whole. By the time the puffling leaves its burrow, each parent will have dove 12,420 times. Check out the book Penguins vs. Puffins for more about these amazing birds!
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There are about 5,000 different species of ladybugs in the world. These much loved critters are also known as lady beetles or ladybird beetles. They come in many different colors and patterns, but the most familiar in North America is the seven-spotted ladybug, with its shiny, red-and-black body. In many cultures, ladybugs are considered good luck. Most people like them because they are pretty, graceful, and harmless to humans. But farmers love them because they eat aphids and other plant-eating pests. One ladybug can eat up to 5,000 insects in its lifetime! Most ladybugs have oval, dome-shaped bodies with six short legs. Depending on the species, they can have spots, stripes, or no markings at all. Seven-spotted ladybugs are red or orange with three spots on each side and one in the middle. They have a black head with white patches on either side. Ladybugs are colorful for a reason. Their markings tell predators: „Eat something else! I taste terrible.“ When threatened, the bugs will secrete an oily, foul-tasting fluid from joints in their legs. They may also play dead. Birds are ladybugs‘ main predators, but they also fall victim to frogs, wasps, spiders, and dragonflies. Ladybugs lay their eggs in clusters or rows on the underside of a leaf, usually where aphids have gathered. Larvae, which vary in shape and color based on species, emerge in a few days. Seven-spotted ladybug larvae are long, black, and spiky-looking with orange or yellow spots. Some say they look like tiny alligators. Larvae grow quickly and shed their skin several times. When they reach full size, they attach to a leaf by their tail, and a pupa is formed. Within a week or two, the pupa becomes an adult ladybug. Ladybugs are happy in many different habitats, including grasslands, forests, cities, suburbs, and along rivers. Seven-spotted ladybugs are native to Europe but were brought to North America in the mid-1900s to control aphid populations. Ladybugs are most active from spring until fall. When the weather turns cold, they look for a warm, secluded place to hibernate, such as in rotting logs, under rocks, or even inside houses. These hibernating colonies can contain thousands of ladybugs. The name „ladybug“ was coined by European farmers who prayed to the Virgin Mary when pests began eating their crops. After ladybugs came and wiped out the invading insects, the farmers named them „beetle of Our Lady.“ This eventually was shortened to „lady beetle“ and „ladybug.“ NASA even sent a few ladybugs into space with aphids to see how aphids would escape in zero gravity.
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When an elephant drinks, it sucks as much as 2 gallons (7.5 liters) of water into its trunk at a time. Then it curls its trunk under, sticks the tip of its trunk into its mouth, and blows. Out comes the water, right down the elephant’s throat. Since African elephants live where the sun is usually blazing hot, they use their trunks to help them keep cool. First they squirt a trunkful of cool water over their bodies. Then they often follow that with a sprinkling of dust to create a protective layer of dirt on their skin. Elephants pick up and spray dust the same way they do water—with their trunks. Elephants also use their trunks as snorkels when they wade in deep water. An elephant’s trunk is controlled by many muscles. Two fingerlike parts on the tip of the trunk allow the elephant to perform delicate maneuvers such as picking a berry from the ground or plucking a single leaf off a tree. Elephants can also use its trunk to grasp an entire tree branch and pull it down to its mouth and to yank up clumps of grasses and shove the greenery into their mouths. When an elephant gets a whiff of something interesting, it sniffs the air with its trunk raised up like a submarine periscope. If threatened, an elephant will also use its trunk to make loud trumpeting noises as a warning. Elephants are social creatures. They sometimes hug by wrapping their trunks together in displays of greeting and affection. Elephants also use their trunks to help lift or nudge an elephant calf over an obstacle, to rescue a fellow elephant stuck in mud, or to gently raise a newborn elephant to its feet. And just as a human baby sucks its thumb, an elephant calf often sucks its trunk for comfort. One elephant can eat 300 pounds (136 kilograms) of food in one day. People hunt elephants mainly for their ivory tusks. Adult females and young travel in herds, while adult males generally travel alone or in groups of their own.
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Have you ever wanted to invent a brand-new dinosaur? Here’s your chance!
constantly learning new things about these ancient animals—in fact, scientists find

Learn about the animals that inspired the Chinese zodiac signs.
These crafty critters aren’t picky eaters and will munch on whatever they can find

The mola, also called the giant ocean sunfish, is gigantic. In fact, it’s the largest of all bony fish. These giant sunfish can grow to weigh as much as 5,000 pounds (2,268 kilograms). That’s almost as much as a small pickup truck. The huge fish may reach a length of 14 feet (4 meters) from face to tail and 10 feet (3 meters) measured from back to stomach. Fish such as sharks and rays are cartilaginous fish—they don’t have bones. Some are heavier than the mola. But among fish with bones, called bony fish, none is larger than the mola. The mola has an unusual look. It’s round. Its tail fin doesn’t grow along with the rest of the fish after the mola hatches. It remains short and rounded, adding to the fish’s overall round shape. The short fin is called a clavus. Molas use the clavus to steer as they swim. Molas enjoy sunning themselves at the surface of the ocean. This is why they are also called sunfish. They live in tropical and temperate oceans around the world. People sometimes see their tall dorsal fins poking above the surface of the water as they sun themselves, and mistake them for sharks. When a mola first hatches, it’s only one-tenth of an inch long. By the time the fish is fully grown, it gains more than 60 million times its weight from when it hatches. (To compare, you’ll probably end up weighing about 30 times what you weighed at birth.) Skin parasites are often a problem for molas. When the fish become infested with parasites, they swim to areas where smaller fish hang out and invite the smaller fish to pick the parasites off as food. When the little fish nibble away at the pesky parasites, they get a meal and they relieve the molas. Another way molas try to get rid of parasites is to leap out of the water and—thwack!—hit the surface of the water hard as they land. They’re trying to shake the pests off of their skin. Molas have been known to leap ten feet into the air doing this. Scientists also think that molas spend time sunning to allow gulls to land on the fish and pick off parasites. The fish float on one side as the birds peck them clean. Then the fish flip to the other side so that can be cleaned, too! Jellyfish are a mola’s favorite food. They also eat small fish and microscopic plants and animals found in the water. They have small mouths that look somewhat like a bird’s beak. To feed, molas repeatedly suck in and spit out whatever they are feeding on. This process tears the food into smaller pieces that the molas can more easily swallow. If you are ever snorkeling in an area where molas are found, don’t be surprised if one comes to check you out. They are not dangerous, but they are rather curious. They often approach divers and snorkelers—just to investigate.
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