Animal Mysteries

    As you know birds migrate.  Birds like the Oriole fly to Panama in the fall.  Barn swallows fly to Central and South America in the fall.  The Arctic Tern flies to the South Pole in the fall.

    Surprise! Surprise!  I'm going to mention a bird that migrates in the spring.  The Manx Sherwater flies to England every spring.  Some people wonder how birds find their way.  Birds follow rivers, mountain ranges or seashores.  Birds have to find their way.  The use the sun to guide in the day and the stars at night.  How do they find their way when it is cloudy?  We're not quite sure.  How do they know where to migrate to?  No one knows.
 
 

    Some insects, like the Monarch butterfly, migrate in the late summer.  But other insects like the Lady Bird Beetle migrate in early spring.  How do these insects find their way, you ask?  They receive reliable clues from the way they sense.  They're are some questions that scientists cannot answer, though.  Some of these questions are:  How do insects find their way when they can't see the sun and how do they know each year where to go?  Scientists hope to figure it out soon.
 
 

    Animals communicate in lots of different ways.  Some ways are infrosound, clicks, ecolocation and sign language.  Those are just a few ways animals communicate.  One mystery is how whales can communicate.
 
 

    Hibernation is a simple part of many animal's life.  It's when animals go into a deep sleep most of winter.  You may ask why do they sleep.  Well, hibernation helps them save energy and survive when food is scarce.  Animals eat enough food in late summer and early fall to develop patches of brown fat across their shoulders and back.  This fat gives them food when the body needs it.  Why is it still a mystery?  Because there is still many questions unanswered.  Like how does hibernation work?  How can animals go without food or water for so long without death?  When they awake why aren't they weak or sick?  Why don't they freeze in their snow-covered dens?  What tells them to enter their dens? And how do they know when to wake up?  Or do their bodies have a magic potion?  No one knows the answers to these questions.