Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2019 i National Geographic Kids

1 SUIT OF ARMOR Don’t mess with this distant relative of the armadillo, which lived about two and a half million to 10,000 years ago. About the size of a small car, Glyptotherium had a serious shield against predators: its superhard shell. It also had a powerful tail it could swing like a club. 2 DEADLY BITE Thylacoleo, the largest known carnivorous mammal in Australia, went extinct about 45,000 years ago. The predator had sharp teeth and a powerful bite, and though it ran on four legs, it might have been able to stand on two. The creature was also a marsupial; newborns developed in their mothers’ pouches. 3 TINY PRIMATE Weighing just one ounce, Tinimomys was so little it could’ve sat on the end of your nose. Tinier than…

1 Llama Leaps Over Bar Porthmadog, Wales Caspa the llama’s not good at watching—he likes to be part of the action. “He was observing our dogs jump over hurdles,” owner and dog trainer Sue Williams says. “Then I heard him make a humming noise, which llamas do sometimes when they’re not impressed. It was as if he was thinking, ‘I can do better than that!’” So Williams decided to use her dog training methods to teach Caspa to jump over bars too. With a lot of training—and some carrots as a reward—Caspa eventually cleared a hurdle nearly four feet tall. “He’s an absolute show-off,” Williams says. 2 Rabbit Plays Basketball Los Angeles, California Before he goes to bed at night, Bini the Holland lop tries to make a slam dunk.…

DOGS HAVE SUPER SENSES… They can hear sounds four times farther away than humans can. They smell separately with each nostril, helping them figure out where smells are coming from. They have special taste buds specifically devoted water. Their entire bodies covered with touch-sensitive nerve endings. … AND CATS HAVE SUPER SENSES TOO. They can ROTATE THEIR EARS 180 DEGREES. They also have WHISKERS on their elbows to help them SENSE AND CATCH PREY. Their WHISKERS HELP THEM JUDGE if a space is large enough for them to squeeze through. They can see up to EIGHT TIMES BETTER IN THE DARK than humans can. WATCH ANIMAL SHOWDOWN: DOG VS. CAT to find out which pet comes out on top. natgeokids.com/november…

MINI-HORSE These are some small shoes to fill—horseshoes, that is. Twenty-two inches tall at the shoulders, Bombel is the smallest living male horse. That’s less than half the size of a baseball bat. Bombel is tiny, but there’s an even tinier female horse: Thumbelina, who’s five inches shorter. MOVING TOILET Is your toilet running? Colin Furze’s is! The world’s fastest motorized toilet can travel up to nearly 54 miles an hour. The contraption is actually a scooter outfitted with a motorcycle engine. Furze sits on a toilet and steers the vehicle with the scooter’s handlebars. Wonder which he uses to get his fellow motorists’ attention: honks or flushes? HAIR STANDS STRAIGHT UP This is one hair-raising guy! Kazuhiro Watanabe of Japan holds the record for the tallest Mohawk, measuring more…

Zeus the power-hungry hamster and his fellow pets at Mount Olympus Pet Center are all named after Greek gods and goddesses—and Zeus wants to prove he’s worthy of ruling over them all. Can he convince his fellow creatures he should be king of the gods before they rebel? In this excerpt from Zeus the Mighty: The Quest for the Golden Fleas, Zeus is convinced he’s found Charybdis (pronounced car-IB-dis), an ancient sea monster, lurking in a, um, toilet. Zeus and his best friend, Demeter the grasshopper, are convinced they’ve trapped the monster with no escape. But have they? Zeus the hamster dipped his toe into the raging whirlpool. “Eeek!” he squeaked. “Get me out of here, Demeter!” Zeus clung to a long, skinny arm of his grasshopper friend Demeter, dangling…

Fur, whiskers, scales, wings—this Special Pets Issue has ’em all. The next 14 pages are crammed with silly pet tricks, weird-but-true dog and cat facts, and behind-the-scenes heroics from human animal helpers. Plus find out more about Zeus the Mighty: The Quest for the Golden Fleas, a new book about a power-hungry hamster that thinks he and his rescue-animal friends are Greek gods. But first, take this personality quiz to see which type of pet—and which Zeus character—you’re most like. So sit, stay, and start flipping! YOUR RESULTS If these descriptions don’t match your personality, don’t worry. These questions are just for fun. You’re a dog! Dogs are arguably the friendliest pets. Like dogs, you love meeting new people and spending time with your very best humans, er, friends. You…

THE VETERINARIAN Jan Pol has helped nearly 500,000 animal patients in his 50 years as a veterinarian. His many amazing stories make it hard to choose just one, but here he recalls two supercute tales: a pair of injured hounds and a sick kitten. “Dogs will chase anything that moves—including porcupines. One time two coonhounds came into the vet clinic with hundreds of porcupine quills stuck in their muzzles. Ouch! If we didn’t remove the pointy spines, they could cause an infection that would make the dogs sick. So we sedated the pups and plucked the quills out one by one. They went back to their owner just fine, but dogs never learn their lesson—next time they meet a porcupine, I’m sure they’ll be back! “Another time a family brought…

1. Fill in the thought balloon. 2. Cut out the entire picture (or make a photocopy of it). 3. Mail it along with your name, address, phone number, and date of birth to Nat Geo Kids, Back Talk, P.O. Box 96000, Washington, DC 20090-6000. Selection for publication in a future issue will be at the discretion of Nat Geo Kids. FROM THE FEBRUARY 2019 ISSUE Hey, I’m not a fly! Lily C., 12 Star, Idaho This is weird. Liam R., 7 Kettering, Ohio I don’t think I can ever frogive you for this! Evie D., 11 Stafford, Virginia Am I mint flavored? Brendon M., 13 Bremen, Indiana You want flies with that? Sylvie R., 6 Mammoth Lakes, California I said lick a log, not a frog! Davin K., 9 Eden…