Even though Sumatran tigers are the smallest tigers in the world, they’re still pretty big cats. Most people know that tigers are endangered, and, again, most people know that no two tigers have the same stripe pattern, much like your fingerprints. But did you know…. Fossils of tiger remains from China show that tigers could be over two million years old! Unlike most cats tigers love the water and are very good swimmers. In fact, they’re such strong swimmers they’ll often chase their prey into the water in order to be able to catch it. Sumatran tigers have the narrowest stripes so they can ambush predators from amongst thick vegetation. Although you may wonder how something that is so...

  Yep, I can get really enthusiastic about prairie dogs. Just ask anybody at the zoo. If someone asks a question about them my answer can soon turn into a dramatic monologue.  These are amazing little animals, and we, as humans, need to understand their significance in our environment. That's a fancy way of saying - these guys are really important. In fact, they're a keystone species (a species on which other species in an ecosystem largely depend, such that if it were removed the ecosystem would change drastically). Not only are they almost solely responsible for re-seeding our prairies (without them our nation would look like the Sahara Desert from Northern Mexico to the Canadian border), they also contribute to...

    I’ve lived in many places and have encountered many ‘nasty’ but ecologically important species. Living in the desert brings a unique perspective on wildlife, insects, etc. Scorpions are my least favorite… well perhaps they are equal to spiders…. which are right up there with snakes. I digress. Did you know that scorpions have some super survival skills? When the food supply of insects is low, they can slow down their metabolism and survive on one insect per year! Researchers have frozen scorpions overnight and put them out in the sun the next day and watched them walk away! They’re found on every continent except Antarctica but mostly live in hot, dry deserts. Scientists think that they may have been the first...