94.WHAT IS A BLOODHOUND?
A bloodhound, of course, is a breed of dog. But how did it develop? Where did it come from?
The history of the dog itself goes back many hundreds of thousands of years. Some scientists believe that dogs are the result of the mating of their cousins, the wolves and the jackals. It is generally believed however that our modern dogs and the wolves are descended from a very remote common ancestor.
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.
