An elephant painting elephants

Did you know that some elephants learn to paint? But they don't paint very good paintings. But one elephant that's called "Peter" paints portraits of Indian elephants and he uses elephant dung paper. Here's a picture of him:

Preserved pigment

Did you think that we'll never know what color the dinosaurs were? Think again! Scientists have found preserved pigment in fossilized skin from an ancient leatherback turtle,a mosasaur, and an ichthyosaur. (Okay, THOSE ancient animals are not dinosaurs but the time is close!) We now think that they were black and the leatherback had white bellies.

Web Tower & Fence

There is an interesting spider web design that looks a fence, and in the middle is a weird tall thing that looks like a weird tower or something. Here is a photo of it:

(Photo: Troy Alexander/Rainforest Expedition Lodges Facebook)

Parakeets celebrating Christmas

My parakeets are celebrating Christmas with us. I made them paper stockings and a paper Chrstmas tree to go on one of their perches.
Interestingly enough, some birds like to chew on the paper, but my parakeets are staying away from the paper Christmas tree so far. I put the stockings outside their cage.

Olinguito

A new mammal was discovered that has bigger ears then the olingo, a bushier tail, a shorter, more pug-like face, a more richly colored body, and a differently shaped skull.

(Borrowed from the Daily Mail website for educational use)

World's biggest insect

In a tree on Little Barrier Island, a bug was found that's so big it eats carrots! Here is a picture of that bug:
 
Photo is from The Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/8930070/Worlds-biggest-insect-is-so-huge-it-eats-carrots.html) and is used only for educational purposes here. Go click on their story!

Animals of the Chinese Zodiac

Today I made all the animals of the Chinese Zodiac! Here is a picture of all the animals of the Chinese Zodiac:

The twelve animals are dog, rat, pig, ox, rooster, snake, tiger, dragon, sheep, horse, rabbit, and monkey.

Now if you have seen the show Jackie Chan Adventures before, these animals are familiar, of course. That is because there are twelve talismans (these animals) that give the person holding them special powers.