Monthly Archives: April 2014
93.WHAT ARE MARSUPIALS?
When European explorers visited the New World, they often brought back with them whatever they considered strange and new. Thus the South American opossum was brought back from Brazil in 1500, and Captain Cook in 1770 told about seeing kangaroos in Australia. Nobody in Europe had ever known about such creatures before—they were marsupials.
92.HOW FAR CAN A KANGAROO JUMP?
Kangaroos are one of the strangest and oldest species of animals on earth today. We know that there was a kind of kangaroo in existence hundreds of thousands of years ago which was nearly as large as a horse!
Today kangaroos are found in Australia, which is sometimes called the “Land of the Kangaroo,” and even has this animal on its national coat of arms.
91.HOW BIG IS THE BIGGEST BEAR?
Because a bear can stand up on its hindlegs, and because some bears are pretty huge, indeed, all kinds of exaggerated tales have sprung up about them. There are legends about great hunters who fought with or killed giant bears.
