Ranger Rick articles from February 1997

Ranger Rick archives from February 1997

I fish with birds.(cormorant fishing in southern China)
February 1, 1997... Hello! My name is Kun Yi, and this is Shiao (Shee-YOW). She's a cormorant, and her full name--Shiao Hua Niao--means Little Colorful Bird. Shiao is sort of a pet. But she's also a working bird with an important job to do. My family lives on the...

Stingrays: they're wonderful to watch as they fly through the water - but beware when they bury themselves in the sand!(Quick Bits)
February 1, 1997... Fishy "Pancakes" Stingrays are pancake-shaped fish, and--you'd never guess it--they're close cousins of sharks. The smallest species (kinds) are about the size of a dinner plate. But some 14-foot (4.2-m) stingrays live in the waters near...

Really weird plants.(bottle trees; fake rock plants; pacypodium elephant feet; lobelia; mimosa; orchids that attract bees)
February 1, 1997... Would you believe plants that use electricity or look just like stones? How about plants with their own air conditioners? Wait--that's not all! LIVING BOTTLES The bottle tree (right) is a weird plant from Madagascar (an island off the east...

Night in the Sonoran Desert.(animal life)
February 1, 1997... It's summer in southern Arizona, and the hot sun bakes the land. By late afternoon (see photo, above), the temperature in this part of the Sonoran (suh-NOR-un) Desert has shot up to over 100 Fahrenheit (38 C). Most animals have hidden from the...

Awesome animal babies!(toads, armadillos, robins, whales, alligators, ducks)
February 1, 1997... When a female Surinam toad lays her eggs, a male grabs them and spreads them all over her back. The female's spongy skin grows over the eggs. As the eggs hatch, the babies "pop" out of their mother's back. Zebras can run and play an hour after...

Adventures of Ranger Rick: Boomer tries to make music but finds he can't beat a flock of experts.(short story)
February 1, 1997... Ranger Rick Raccoon and a tired Scarlett Fox trudged through some bushes in the late afternoon. Boomer Badger, fiddling with some kind of stick, trotted along behind. "Let's camp . . ." Scarlett began saying. Pfffft! came the sound of Boomer...

More facts.(trumpeter swans)
February 1, 1997... Trumpeter swans once flew over much of North America. But by the 1900s, fewer than 100 survived in the United States outside of Alaska. Most of these lived in or near Yellowstone National Park. Here's the good news. In the past few years,...

A wild parade.(All Species environmental Parade, each April, in Ann Arbor, MI)(Green Zine)
February 1, 1997... Happy Halloween? (above) Nope! This boy was marching in last year's All Species Parade, which takes place every April in Ann Arbor, Michigan. About a month and a half before the parade, kids and grownups get together and start making amazing...

Endangered species.(protection programs for bigeared bats, black rhinos, Kemp's ridley sea turtles)
February 1, 1997... When it comes to helping endangered species, even a little bit of good news can be great. Once the numbers of a rare animal stop going down and start climbing back up, that can be the beginning of a comeback. Here are some good beginnings: The...

Life on mars?(meteorite found in Antarctica contains Martian fossils and organic chemicals)(Green Zine)
February 1, 1997... Have you heard the big news? In two meteorites from Mars, scientists have found some surprising chemicals and fossil-shaped bumps. These clues show an amazing thing: There once may have been life on Mars! This new discovery comes from...

Kangaroo care.(albino kangaroo at San Francisco Zoo)(Green Zine)
February 1, 1997... Check out Mulali (right), a young kangaroo in the San Francisco Zoo. Mulali is an albino (al-BYE-no), which means she was born with no color in her skin or fur. For an albino, the sun can be a big problem--the animal's skin can't protect it...

The Sonoran Desert.(two recommended books, plus contact numbers for the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson)(More Info)
February 1, 1997... (pages 22-29). Want to learn more about desert wildlife? A good book is Desert, by April Pulley Sayre (Twenty-first Century Books, 1994.) Another is One Day in the Desert, by Jean Craighead George (Thomas Y. Crowell, 1983). Of course, the best...

Whales.
February 1, 1997... A Whale of a Film The National Wildlife Federation now makes nature films too. In WHALES, a 40-minute film, these creatures come alive on super-huge IMAX screens. To find out if WHALES is showing at a museum near you, call 703-790-4079.BOTTOMS...

She's a winner!(National Wildlife Federation 'Trudy Farrand/John Strohm Magazine Writing Award' - children's author Nora Steiner Mealy)
February 1, 1997... When a new copy of Ranger Rick arrives in the mail, what's the first thing Nora Steiner Mealy's kids ask her to read out loud? "The Adventures of Ranger Rick," Nora says. One day Nora wrote an Adventure and sent it to the magazine's editors....