Walking on the wild side.

If the Yak could round up all the animals he's written about in 9 years, he could open a zoo. His first animal story was on--what else--the amazing yak, a huge, sure-footed creature with fur so thick it can live in temperatures as cold as 40 below zero. Did he mention handsome?

In a column called "Amazing Animals," the Yak wrote about dozens of fascinating animals, including the African wild dog, Chinese alligator, Grevy's zebra, sun bear, bonobo and wood turtle. (Visit the Yak's Web site at www.yakscorner.com to read some of them.)

The Yak also wrote many longer animal stories, visiting new exhibits at zoos, interviewing animal biologists and observing animals in the wild and his own backyard! Animals became a Yak beat, or area of regular coverage, along with books, snacks, sports and current events.

The Yak has made so many furry, rough-skinned and slimy friends, including bats and tarantulas, both of which he once feared. He fell in love with bats in 1999, when he got to see some up close in the Mexican rain forest. (You can see bats up close, too, at the Bat Zone at the Cranbrook Institute of Science.) They look like cute little dogs with wings. And they're vacuums for pesky insects, especially mosquitoes.

Tarantulas, the world's largest spiders, were a largest spiders, were a bigger challenge. But after visiting Cara Shillington, a zoologist at Eastern Michigan University, the Yak came to think of tarantulas as she does, as "furry and cuddly."

It was the week before Halloween, and Cara felt a little sad and frustrated--as she always is at that time of year. Scary spider decorations were popping up everywhere, making people even more afraid of her favorite animals. She told the yak about tarantulas in the wild, how the males and females are couch potatoes, coming out of their burrows just far enough to ambush prey. But at about eight years, the males reach sexual maturity and leave their burrows forever.

"Suddenly, the male ...