Aardvark

The aardvark is an African animal that feeds on ants and termites.

The aardvark is one of Africa’s strangest creatures.   Its strange name comes from the old Dutch words meaning “earth pig.”  In some ways “earth Pig” is a good name, for its body is shaped much like a pig’s, and it spends most of the day curled up in its cool underground den.

But the aardvark is not like a pig in any other way.  An aardvark’s front feet are provided with powerful claws, which it uses to open termite and ant nests.

Then it pushes out its long tongue, which is like a flat, sticky worm more than a foot long.  It licks up the ants it  uncovers.  The ants stick to the aardvark’s sticky tongue as if it were flypaper, and the aardvark slurps the ants into its mouth.

Then it pokes its long tongue down into the winding tunnels to find more ants to eat.  It may eat many thousands of ants in one meal.

While it is eating, the aardvark’s thick, leathery skin protects it from the angry bites of the ants.

Although they look clumsy, aardvarks are not easy to catch, for in a few minutes they can dig a hole deep enough to escape from enemies. – Dick Rogers

origami lion

Lions have always been one of my top wild cats. That could be thanks to Disney’s Lion King and it has been a childhood dream to go to Africa to see these majestic, wild and impressive animals.

Reference:

http://en.origami-club.com/animal/lion/index.html

Aside from their intrusive behavior, baboons are some of the most interesting monkey species in Africa—in both appearance and behavior.

Interesting Baboon Facts:

• Similar to humans, baboons are extremely social beings and take great pride in their friendships. Baboons, however, do differ from humans in the way they express their friendships to one another. Expressing friendship includes grooming, food sharing, and sometimes mating rights.

• Weighing anywhere form 50 – 100 lbs., the baboon’s primary diet consists of grass, berries, seeds, and sometimes meat such as small fish, insects, and other monkey species. 

• Baboons communicate with others using over 30 different types of calls including grunts, screams, and barks. They can also communicate with body language. Non-oral forms of communication include facial expressions, shoulder shrugging, and lip smacking. Not too far off from some humans?

• Living in large troops—up to about 50 members—baboons will spend most of their day socializing and grooming each other.

• Equipped with pouch-like cheeks, baboons store their food when there is a predator in sight or when they simply have too much food in their mouth at once.

• With canine teeth that can grow up to 2 inches long (as long as a lion’s canines), the baboon is an intimidating sight. However, these teeth aren’t primarily used for attacking, rather, they are meant to intimidate other baboons.

• Baboons can live without water for several days at a time. What’s their secret? They lick the dew from their fur during the night to stay hydrated.

YOU WILL NEED:

scissors, pencil, paper, paintbrush, cloth or rags, damp sponge, paints.

DIRECTIONS:

1. To quickly fill in a large area, such as sky or land, try using a sponge to apply a textured layer of paint. Remember sky and land have many different colors in them – not just one.

2. For the Castle, try making dappled patters with a piece of cloth or sponge. This is useful for forests and clouds where the light is patchy. Famous Impressionist painters such as Claude Monet used dappled effects. After the paint dries cut out a castle silhouette and some trees. You can be creative like my son and add a cannon. LOL! Boys!

3 For Sunset background using a cloth or rag to apply the paint. The clouds are added to the painted background. You can stick on silhouettes after the paint dries of African animals. I wanted to put an elephant however, my daughter wanted to put a lioness so that is what she cut out to put on.

This painting is just another priceless masterpiece you can hang in your home!