The Lives of Wild Animals Book #3: A Set of Seven 15-Minute books

By Caitlind L. Alexander

There are many amazing animals in the world. Some are funny and some are strange. This book will tell you about seven interesting, but amazing animals. Each book covers six subjects: What is it, where does it live, what does it eat, who are its enemies, how are babies born and raised, and some fun facts about the animal.
This is a compilation of seven of our popular 15-Minute Books. It contains the full text and pictures from the following individual books:

Elephants: The Kings of the Land
Hippos: Giants Who Love the Water
Polar Bears: Bears of Ice and Sea
Beavers: Gnawers of the Northern Woods
Bighorn Sheep: World of the Mountain Walkers
Spiders: Spinners of the Sticky Web
Raccoons: Masked Robbers of the Night

Ages 7 to 10
Reading level: 3.7
All measurements in American and metric.

LearningIsland.com believes in the value of children practicing reading for 15 minutes every day. Our 15-Minute Books give children lots of fun, exciting choices to read, from classic stories, to mysteries, to books of knowledge. Many books are appropriate for hi-lo readers. Open the world of reading to a child by having them read for 15 minutes a day.

• Language: English
• Publisher: LearningIsland.com
• Release date: Dec 25, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311096852

Caitlind L. Alexander

Caitlind Alexander is the author of over 60 books for children, including the Jamie and Kendall Broderick Mystery series, the 14 Fun Facts and 101 Fun Facts series, the Wonderful World of Animals Series, and the Miss Jones series.She lives in California where she loves to visit historic places and learn about new things. She also loves to travel and has been all over the world.

Book preview

THE KINGS OF THE LAND

What is an Elephant?

Elephants are the largest animal that lives on land. They are HUGE! A male elephant can stand 12 feet (3.75 metres) tall at the shoulders. It can weigh up to 26,000 pounds (12,000 kg). That means one elephant can weigh as much as 13 small trucks!

Female elephants are smaller, but they are still big. A female elephant is only about ten feet (3 metres) tall. She weighs about 11,000 pounds (5 tonnes).

Asian elephants and forest elephants are a bit smaller than African elephants.

Elephants have four very strong legs. Their legs are like posts. They have to be large enough to hold all the muscles an elephant needs to stand and walk around. Their legs are so big around that a grown woman can barely reach her arms all the way around one leg!

Elephants have a huge, round body. It is so big that 10 children can sit on top of an elephant at once!

But one of the strangest things about an elephant is its nose, or trunk. The trunk can be five feet (150 cm) long and weigh 300 pounds (135 kg)!

This trunk can be used for many different things. It is strong enough to pick up a man, or even a heavy tree. It is also gentle enough to take a single peanut from your hand.

The elephant's trunk can do so many things because it has so many muscles in it. In fact, an elephant's trunk has more muscles in it than a human has in its entire body!

Elephants will use their trunk to pick up food and put it in their mouth. If the food is up in a tree, they can use their trunk to reach up and grab it. They can also push a tree over with their trunk. They do this if the leaves they want to eat are too far above their head.

They can use their trunk to move things out of the way. If they are thirsty, they will use their trunk to dig a hole. If they want to take a mud bath, they can dig a hole big enough to roll around in.

Elephants can use their trunk to drink. They cannot drink through their trunk, but they can pick water up in their trunk and squirt it into their mouth. An elephant's trunk can hold up to 15 quarts (14 litres) of water!

They can breathe through their trunk. When they go swimming, they will hold their trunk up above the water and breathe through it.

On the end of an elephant's trunk are 'fingers'. These fingers stick out from the end of their trunk. The elephant can use their fingers the same way that we use our fingers. They can pick up something as small as a single blade of grass. African elephants have two fingers at the end of their trunk. Asian elephants only have one.

Elephants have very large ears. Their ears can be four feet (1.3 metres) across. They use their large ears to cool off. Hot blood will flow out to an elephant's ears. Then the elephant will flap its ears back and forth. This cools the blood off. Then the cool blood flows back into the elephant's body.

The ears on an African elephant are bigger than those on an Asian elephant. Africa can get very hot in the summer.

Elephants do not sweat like people do. Sweat comes out of a tiny tube in your skin called a sweat gland. Elephants do not have sweat glands in their skin. They only have a few sweat glands, and those are between their toenails! Those aren't much good at keeping an elephant cool. Instead, elephants will cover themselves in mud to help them stay cool.

Elephants will often rest or play in water. It doesn't even matter to them if the water is muddy.

In fact, elephants love to take mud baths. They will pick up the mud in their trunk and throw it all over their body. Then they let the mud dry.

This mud blanket keeps insects and bugs from biting them. It also keeps the elephant from getting sunburned. It can also help to keep them cool.

Elephants have very thick skin. Their skin can be over one inch