Innholdsfortegnelse for June/July 2020 i National Geographic Kids

A museum in South Korea is designed to look like a toilet bowl. The sunset on Mars appears blue. Pigeons have received medals of honor for military service. Two of George Washington’s library books have been missing for more than 220 years. Alligator teeth are hollow. One type of wildflower smells like chocolate. Kinkajous can twist their hind feet backward to climb trees. Lightning can make the air around it 5 times hotter than the sun’s surface. Watch Fast Facts for even more crazy-fun facts. natgeokids.com/june-july…

1 Tanzania has the world’s largest population of tree-climbing lions. 2 Thrill-seeking tourists sandboard down giant dunes on many of Africa’s beaches and deserts. 3 Mummified crocodiles have been discovered in ancient Egyptian cemeteries. 4 More than a thousand languages are spoken in Africa. 5 Africa’s Arabian camels have one hump; Bactrian camels in Asia have two. 6 Some scenes in the Star Wars movies were filmed in Tunisia.…

Even smarty-pants scientists mess up sometimes! These Nat Geo explorers reveal some of their wildest slipups—and what they learned from them. LAZY LIONS THE SCIENTIST: Rae Wynn-Grant COOL JOB: Large carnivore ecologist THE LOCATION: Tanzania, a country in Africa “I was studying the movement and hunting behavior of lions in the savanna. When I found my first subject, he was snoozing. I noticed that his belly was huge—he’d just eaten a big meal. I watched the lion do nothing but sleep for hours until it got dark. And then when I came back the next morning, the lion still hadn’t moved. “In four months, I found seven other lions … just lying around, full of food. I never arrived in time to see the behavior I was there to study.…

EXPLORER ACADEMY Check out fan art drawn by kids who’ve read the Explorer Academy book series! Draw a wacky snack. Send us your original drawings: Nat Geo Kids—Snack Art Zone P.O. Box 98002 Washington, DC 20090-8002 Include your name, address, phone number, date of birth, a title for your drawing, a statement that it is your own work, and the name of your parent or guardian. Your parent or guardian must sign a release for publication if your illustration is selected. Submissions become the property of National Geographic Partners, and all rights thereto are transferred to National Geographic Partners. Submissions cannot be acknowledged or returned. Selection will be at the discretion of Nat Geo Kids. Answers “Pet Records” (pages 28-29): 1. freshwater fish, 2. Lagotto Romagnolo, 3. chinchilla, 4. llama,…

COQUEREL’S SIFAKA A This giant bird is almost as tall as an ostrich FALSE. a scarlet ibis is only about 22 inches tall. An ostrich is three to four times takller. B They might like a mud pie. FALSE. Using their long bills, scarlet ibis probe the mud for what they really like. crabs, snails, fish insects, frogs, and small snakes in the marshes where they live. C Their scarlet color comes from the food they eat. TURE. The bright coloration comes from a substance in the crabs and shrimp in their diet. D You can spot these birds in canada. FALSE. Scarlet ibis live in south America. E Ibis are very noisy birds. FALSE. They are usually quiet. they mostly grunt and croak softly.…

COQUEREL’S SIFAKA A Wallabies are kangaroos TRUE. Wallabies are small to medium-size kangaroos. Agile wallabies are one of the largest kinds of wallaby. B Dinner with a wallaby is a mob scene. TURE. Groups of Wallabies, called mobs, dine together. Agile wallabies are found throughout tropical Austrila in forests and grasslands rivers or streams. C Wallabies eat only the soft new shoots from grasses and shrubs. FALSE. Wallabies eat every part of a plant. During the dry season, mobs even dig up plant roots for food. D Wallaby parents must watch out for dingoes. TRUE. The dingo, a kind of wild dog, preys on wallabies. so do pythons and eagles. E These wallabies are quite clumsy. FALSE. They are very agile and quick.…

If you could pet a shark (um, don’t!), its skin would feel smooth when you moved your hand from its snout toward the tail. But brush your hand the other way, and it’ll feel like sandpaper. That’s because a shark’s skin is made up of tiny overlapping scales that point toward the tail. The shape of the scales reduces drag—the force of the water pushing back on the shark—allowing the shark to zoom through the water superfast. Scientists have discovered that these overlapping scales also prevent bacteria from growing on the skin. Why? Bacteria can’t grow without water, and the scales’ structure prevents water from collecting behind the scales. That stops bacteria from attaching to the shark’s skin. The design inspired one company to create a film with microscopic ridges…

BEACH DAZE These photographs show close-up views of objects you see at the beach. Unscramble the letters to identify what’s in each picture. Feeling the heat? ANSWERS ON PAGE 33…

WHY? Ice cream is a tasty treat for you, but the plastic spoon and cup it’s served in can be harmful for wildlife. Since plastic utensils and cups are so lightweight, they often blow off of overflowing trash cans and into creeks, where they can eventually travel to the ocean. Once these items break into smaller pieces, seabirds sometimes pick up the plastic and eat it or feed it to their chicks, which can cause them to starve since they’re not getting proper food. So instead, order your creamy treat in an edible container—you can choose between cake and waffle cones! ALMANAC CHALLENGE! Show us the heroic ways you’ve reduced plastic waste in your home, classroom, or community. Send us your stories and photos (along with a permission form), and…

COQUEREL’S SIFAKA A Agharlal grown as long as 24 feet. TRUE. That is it’s equivalent to both feet of 12 10-year-olds, toe to heel. If you use a ruler, however, a large gharial (related to crocodiles and alligators) can measure nearly 20 feet long. B Mom crales her babies in her mouth. FALSE. her sharp teeth might make it a deadly cradles. She does protech youngesers near the nesting site. C Gharlarls are bery commom FALSE. There may be only about 200 left in the wild in india and nepal. D If yor’re going out to dinner with a gharial, plan on sushi. TRUE. Adult gharials eat mostly fish. E A bump at the end of a male Gharials nout is a nolse-and-bubble-maker. TRUE. They communicate by buzzing and bolwing…

Some of the oldest piggy banks in the world were made around the 15th century. Ethiopian coins dated 1977 were actually issued in 1984. The country follows a calendar that’s nearly 8 years earlier than Western ones. The small tooth-shaped designs that circle the edges of some coins are called denticles. Belarus issued a 20-ruble collector’s coin with a picture of potato pancakes on one side. A 1,400-year-old coin sold for $5.76 million, one of the most expensive coins ever. Pikachu and other Pokémon characters appear on dollar coins in Niue, an island some 1,500 miles from New Zealand. The Bank of England holds a 100-millionpound note called a titan. U.S. banknotes are printed 4 times: for background images, the back, the front, and serial numbers and seals. Coins issued…

1 Later this summer, NASA will send Perseverance—a rover that’s like a science lab on wheels—to Mars. 2 A planet is a large body of rock, gas, and other material that travels around a star (like our sun). 3 Europa, one of Jupiter’s 79 moons, has a salty, icecovered ocean that’s almost 10 times deeper than Earth’s oceans. 4 Earth is the only planet in our solar system not named for a Greek or Roman god or goddess. 5 Neptune might have oceans of liquid diamond. 6 Jupiter is our solar system’s biggest planet—all 7 of the other planets could fit inside it. 7 Uranus has only 2 seasons: summer and winter. Each lasts 42 Earth years. 8 The clouds on Venus rain sulfuric acid. 9 Saturn has a solid…

STOP, THIEF! Ask a friend to give you words to fill in the blanks in this story without showing it to him or her. Then read out loud for a laugh. For summer break, my family took a trip to a(n) historical era town. I was excited to look for people wearing oldfashioned article of clothing, plural and noun, plural. My brother only cared about seeing animal, plural. We were verb ending in -ing by a bank when a man dressed in all color past-tense verb out of the building. He threw some bags of noun, plural over his shoulders before verb ending in -ing off down the street. “Stop, thief!” a(n) type of job yelled behind us. I ran to the animal, plural next to the bank and adverb…

CRAB-EATING FOX A A newborn crab-eating fox can weigh almost as much as a softball. TRUE. A pup weighs 4 to 5.5 ounces. B Parents regurgitate (throw up) dinner for youngsters. FALSE. Adults bring the pups solid food; they don’t regurgitate like wolves do. C If it’s born the first week of school, a pup wouldn’t start hunting until spring break. FALSE. Pups start hunting with their parents when they’re only six weeks old. D Crab-eating foxes eat only crabs. FALSE. Crab-eating foxes eat just about anything, including land crabs, fruits, insects, turtle eggs, lizards, and birds. E They live in a dog-eat-fox world. TRUE. Their predators include dogs, cougars, jaguars, and caimans. These foxes live in parts of South America.…

DUGONG A A dugong is part whale and part walrus. FALSE. It’s not related to either; it is related to the manatee. B Dugongs slap their tails on the water’s surface to communicate. FALSE. They communicate with vocal sounds including trills, chirps, and barks. C A newborn dugong and newborn human are about the same size. FALSE. A dugong calf is almost as big as a 10-year-old kid. D This uber-predator gobbles its way through tons of sea creatures. FALSE. This herbivore prefers a salad of sea grasses. E Dugongs are unlikely to hang out with giant squid. TRUE. Giant squid like deep water, but dugongs graze in shallow ocean. Dugongs live in waters off parts of Australia, Africa, Asia, and nearby islands.…

DESERT LOCUST Desert locusts are destructive. TRUE. When swarming, billions can blanket more than 200 square miles, devouring every plant in their path. Bugs are also on a locust’s menu. FALSE. It’s completely vegetarian, eating millet, rice, sugarcane, corn, and more. Desert locusts swarm every year. FALSE. They swarm only when food is scarce and they crowd together to eat. Bumping into each other’s legs causes them to change to swarm behavior. If a teenager and a locust were the same size, the locust would eat more than the teen. TRUE. In swarm mode, a locust can eat its body weight every day. Teens do not! There is a yummy side to locusts. TRUE. People collect and eat desert locusts stir-fried, roasted, boiled, and dried.…