Book Recommendations: An Animal A Day by Miranda Smith & The Dark!: Wild Life in the Mysterious World of Caves by Lindsey Leigh

The Bronx Zoo, one of my favorite places to go, recently opened an exhibit "World of Darkness" and it includes naked mole rats (so cute!), cloud rats, pygmy slow loris and Egyptian fruit bats. It has been really interesting to see these animals in person, since I don't generally go in caves or nocturnal forests! Thus, I was excited to read The Dark! and learn more about cave-dwelling animals. The illustrations are almost cartoon-like, but the book is full of facts, such as...

• Some whip spider species have been observed gently caressing their babies! A mother whip spider will sit in the middle of her young whip spiderlings, stroking their bodies with her feelers. The babies will even stroke their mama back! (p.57)

• When it rained heavily in the area, the rain would wash the olms out of the caves and people at the time believed them to be baby dragons emerging from their lairs. (p. 22) [Olms are blind salamanders that live in under-water caves]

  

• The cave angelfish can climb so well because its spine and pelvis are shaped more like a salamander's than a fish's and its pelvis helps it to move like it has legs for walking rather than fins for swimming. (p. 19)

• A cave is certainly the last place you'd ever expect to find an elephant. BUT, the elephants of western Kenya sometimes go deep into the nearby Kitum Cave in Mount Elgon, which is an extinct volcano, to eat salf if they can't get enough of the mineral from plants and soil. (p. 74)

AND, I learned about the rediscovery of the Shelta Cave Crayfish in this book.

One more cool animal - THE WATER SCORPION!

Did you know that World Giraffe Day is June 21st? and October 20th is World Sloth Day? And on, and on (September 6th is International Vulture Day...)

In the book An Animal a Day the author has a unique species selected with gorgeous illustrations and basic facts and data for each day of the year.

Maybe you want to check your birthday (August 4th is the Blue Mountain Swallowtail, July 17th is the Cane Toad.)

Or TODAY (August 31st) - the Caribbean Reef Octopus.

Although there are many animals that you might know and love for the 366 (yes, leap year is accounted for!) animals, there may be some surprises - the Fried-Egg Jellyfish is mentioned, the Jewel Beetle (February 8th) and the Vogelkop Bowerbird (June 21st) and the Leaf-Curling Spider (June 20th).

As much as I love animals, there is always more to learn, for December 30th's listing I learned about the beautiful rainbow lizard, described as follows, "When startled, the colors of this lizard become brighter. It has long, powerful hind legs to leap or run away quickly from a predator. Also known as the common agama, this lizard lives in dry forests, grasslands and deserts. It lives in eastern Africa."

Every day is a day worth celebrating animals!