Common vine snakes are really interesting snakes for many reasons. A common vine snake is a long, bright green snake with a pink tongue and a thin, pointed snout. Common Vine Snakes inhabit South India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and the northern part of mainland Southeast Asia and are
usually found in forests, gardens, or bushes.
Hermit crabs are really interesting animals. They take empty shells from sea snails and live in them for a little while. They have to change shells sometimes, though. If a hermit crab has a shell too small, it won’t grow as fast and it’s more likely to be eaten.
Hermit crabs live all over the world and there are more than 500 different species of them. Most of them live in the water but there are at least 15 different terrestrial species. Even though a hermit crab is called a hermit CRAB, hermit crabs aren’t closely related to true crabs.
Some big hermit crabs can grow to be as big as a coconut and might have a sea anemone on its shell. The hermit crab and the anemone both get a good deal, though. The sea anemone gets the hermit crab’s left-over food and a ride, and the sea anemone scares away all the fish that might want to eat the hermit crab.
A hermit crab reproduces by laying eggs. Once the eggs hatch and the baby hermit crabs come out, they all run to the shore hoping to find an empty snail shell that fits them. To survive, they feed on algae and debris. Some hermit crabs can live up to 30 years (I hope my hermit crab Cow lives that long)!
While we were in Phuket, I found two hermit crabs on the beach. I named one Cow and the other Purple. Cow was cool because his shell was black and white, so he looked like a small cow. I really liked playing with them and hope to see more hermit crabs in Africa, South America, and Antarctica :-).
Fun Facts:
1. Hermit Crabs live in colonies of more than 100 hermit crabs. They don’t do as well by themselves.
2. Hermit crabs are called hermit crabs because they are like a hermit living alone in a cave even though they live in colonies.
A mahout is a person who drives an elephant. A mahout is assigned an elephant when he is a young boy. The boy will stay with that elephant for the elephant’s whole life. While the mahout is with the elephant, they will give the elephant baths, ride on it, give it lots of food, and work with the elephant. Some of the things that the elephant might have to do are moving huge logs, begging on the streets for food, or even taking part in religious ceremonies.
Mahouts are usually nice to their elephants, but they can often be mean. They might overuse their anlius, not give the elephant enough food, or work the elephant way too much. To guide an elephant, the mahout must use a tool called an anlius. An anlius is a short stick with a sharp hook on the end. The mahouts poke the elephant’s head with the point of the anlius. They poke the elephant in order to get the elephant to turn, go, stop, or slow down. While the mahout is poking the elephant, he must also say “by!” When an elephant feels the anlius and hears a loud “BY!” it knows that he has to start moving.
While we were in Chiang Rai, we got to ride elephants and meet the mahouts. The mahouts lived with their families next to the elephants’ stalls. Every morning, the mahouts would wake up, give the elephants a bath, give them some bananas, sugarcane, and water, and then we would ride the elephants for a few hours. Riding the elephants in Chiang Rai was really fun and I hope we do it again sometime.
A skink is a really cool type of lizard. Skinks are the most diverse and successful group of lizards and are found worldwide. One reason why they are doing so well is because of their good sense of smell, sight, and hearing. Like other lizards, skinks can also lose their tail, but some can only lose their tail once. Even though skinks are doing so well, there are still some species of skinks that are endangered. The Blue Mountain Skinks, White’s Skinks, and Broadhead Skinks are some examples of skinks that are either endangered or threatened.
One reason why I think skinks are such cool reptiles is because they look different from almost all other reptiles. Skinks usually have short legs or none at all and their whole body is covered with smooth, shiny, overlapping scales. These scales are striped in bright reds, oranges, blues, yellows, blacks, and browns so they blend in almost perfectly in a garden. Pacific Skinks are the best skinks at camouflaging. These skinks can change colors, like chameleons, in a matter of seconds. This is probably why there are so many skinks in and around gardens. If you happen to have a skink in yours, don’t try to kill it because when skinks are in a garden, it usually means that your garden is healthy. Skinks are also really nutritious and help gardens a lot. They help almost as much as fertilizer!
If you asked some skinks what their favorite food was, most of them would probably say insects. Some might say spiders, earthworms, isopods (a type of crustacean), or lizards, though. Every once in a while, a big skink might eat a small rodent, but since the average skink is rarely longer than 200 mm, they can’t eat anything too big. The longest recorded skink was huge (350 mm long!).
So far on our trip, we have seen a Rainbow Skink, a Many-lined Sun Skink, and a Speckled Forest Skink, but I hope to see more of these amazing reptiles. So, next time you see a skink, instead of ignoring it, remember how important and helpful they are to people!
Fun Facts:
1. There aren’t any venomous skinks, but there are two types of venomous lizards (the Gila Monster and the Mexican Bearded Dragon). They both live in the southwestern part of the United States and northern Mexico.
2. Some people own skinks, iguanas, bearded dragons, leopard geckos, or even monitor lizards as pets!
3. Skinks have eyelids that blink, but other lizards don’t even have eyelids.
4. Many lizards can change color according to where they are like the chameleon.
5. The Collared Lizard is the fastest type of lizard recorded.
