Glennstorm the Clydesdale

The Clydesdale is known for it’s feathered legs.  The treditional Clydesdale is chestnut with black mane and tail and white feathered legs.  They also have white facial markings and black knees.  The Clydesdale is about 64 to 72″in and weighs about 1,800 to 2,000 pounds but some grown males can be larger and standing taller then 72″in and weighing 2,200 pounds!  Clydesdales are used for drafting, wriding, and show.  The balck Clydesdale is a rare breed there is less then 4,000 in the u.s.

this video is about lodestar farm that breeds black clydesdale’s

Next month  is Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy!

Tennessee Walker Horse

The Tennessee Walking Horse is used for:

Very popular in show events, English and western riding, They are also very popular trail horses.

The Tennessee Walker horse can wear western and English tack.  The Tennessee Walker Horse is one of the smaller horses with good and quiet temper. This breed of horse is a good family breed.

Have you ever seen a Tennessee Walker Horse show? If you have there is a way to make them lift there legs. It is called soring

After you have watched this video a girl scout did a project on the Tennessee Walker Horse. On how trainers sore a horse and how painful it is for the horse.

When I was watching this video, I thought “I would act the same if it was me” so think as if it was you as the horse.

Pleas help these horses from this cruel act!

Desert, courtesy wikipedia

A desert is a unique biome that receives less than ten inches of rain a year.  Deserts are very dry, but they are not always hot.  There are two kinds of deserts: hot deserts and cold deserts.  The hot desert is the kind of desert we are most familiar with.  They can be very hot.  The Sahara Desert reaches daily temperatures over 110 degrees Fahrenheit regularly during the summer.  The hottest temperature every recorded on earth was in the Sahara:  136 degrees Fahrenheit.  That is very hot!  But even hot deserts are not always hot.  At night, temperatures can drop to 41 degrees Fahrenheit, even after reaching temperatures over 100.  During the winter, nighttime temperatures can drop below freezing.

Why do hot deserts get so cold at night?  Deserts are very dry.  Moisture in the air acts like a blanket and insulates the ground, keeping the heat in.  Since there is little moisture in the air in a desert, the heat escapes as soon as the sun goes down.  This is a special challenge to plants and animals because they have to have adaptations for surviving the cold of night and the heat of day.

Antarctica , courtesy wikipedia

Cold deserts are found in Antarctica, Greenland and near the arctic zones.  Winter temperatures average between 28 degrees Fahrenheit and 3o degrees.  Summer temperatures may reach 78 degrees.  They can actually get quite a bit of precipitation, usually as snowfall in the winter.  The soil is porous, which means it has lots of holes.  Water drains off the surface very quickly, so the soil is dry even after heavy rains or snow melts

Road Runner-wikipedia

They have a long neck, and long beak to help them stretch and balance.  Their legs are very strong and built for running.  Their feathers are black with white streaks and some brown.  Their coloration helps them blend in to the desert environment.

Road runners are omnivores.  They mostly eat meat, but they will eat plants.  They hunt snakes, other birds, small reptiles and amphibians and rodents.  They are very fast, fast enough to eat rattlesnakes!

First the roadrunner grabs the rattlesnake by its tail.  Before the rattlesnake can bite the roadrunner, the bird swings the rattlesnake around and pounds its head on the ground until it dies.

Roadrunners are well adapted to desert life.  Their colors blend in.  They hunt in the morning and evening.  In the heat of the day, they find shade to cool off.  They get most of the water they need from their food.  They also reabsorb moisture from their waste.  Salt builds up in a bird’s body when it digests food or sweats.  Most birds get rid of salt through their liquid waste.  The roadrunner would lose too much water this way.  They have a special gland near their nose to get rid of salt.

The Road Runner is also a famous cartoon made in 1948 by animation director Chuck Jones.

road runner,wikipedia

My mom says she saw lots of roadrunners hunting near the road when we used to live in Texas.  I hope I get to see a roadrunner someday.

You can email me your submission at thesciencemouseATgmailDOTcom.

Thank you!

The topic is: The Family Dog.  I welcome personal stories about your dog, pictures, articles about different dog breeds, the history of dogs, how dogs help humans, wild cousins to our dogs and anything else about dogs!  You can email your stories, pictures and articles to me here:  thesciencemouseATgmailDOTcom.

We have not named her and we would like your help!  Please leave your suggestions in comments.  I will give a copy of Exploring Science to one random suggestion.

They are also very important to humans because of what is inside them and on them.  They are used a lot in classrooms to teach students about basic anatomy.  If you are interested in seeing what a frog looks like on the inside, you can dissect them online and you don’t even have to kill a frog!

The Choco Indians knew that some frogs had powerful poisons on their skin and used this to poison their arrows to make them more deadly.  Other frogs they used to spread on their skin when they cut themselves because it made the wound heal faster.  A long time ago, Chinese people used a medicine made from frog poisons to help the heart that works the same way our modern medicine does to strengthen heart contractions.

It is funny that in all these places thought of as “traditional” people recognized the value of frogs.  In the West, however, frogs were blamed for things like warts and witchcraft.  Maybe it was the West that was backwards because now scientists are finding many powerful medicines in frogs.  Here are some uses of frogs in medicine:

1. African clawed frogs were used to show if a woman was pregnant back in the 1930s.
2. A type of Australian tree frog may be used to make more powerful antibiotics that bacteria will have a hard time building a resistance to.
3. A pain killer that is more powerful than morphine but with less side effects can be made from the toxins made by the South American poison dart frog.
4. They may even be able to make a mosquito repellent from frog secretions that does not have the chemicals in our current sprays!

Amphibians really are amazing and very important to humans as well as the environment.