Fossil Hunting

While we were staying in Whitby we went hunting for fossils and jet on the coast at Runswick Bay.
The cliffs are from the Jurassic period.  The Jurassic period was 200 to 145 million years ago.

A fossil is the remains of an animal or plant that has been turned into stone by a process called fossilisation.  Fossils are usually found in a type of rock called sedimentary rock. These are rocks that are made when sand or mud is laid down in layers. The layers get squashed under more and more layers and eventually turn to rocks.   A fossil forms when an animal dies and its remains lie in mud or sand.  The body decays but the shape of it remains in the mud.  Over millions of years the mud is turned into stone with the fossil shape still inside it.

Lots of the fossils we found were Ammonites.  These are from the Jurassic period. Ammonites were sea animals that had a coiled shell.  They became extinct at the same time as the dinosaurs.

We also found some Belemnites. Most of them were still buried in the large rocks on the beach.  Belemnites were also marine animals. They had a body like a squid but with a hard skeleton that was bullet shaped in the tail.  Some people call them devil’s fingers or devil’s bullets because of their pointed shape. 

Some of the other fossils we found molluscs or bivalves. They had a soft body but a hard shell and you can see the shell shape left in the rock.  

Ammonites

bivalves 

Cotswold Wildlife Park

Humboldt Penguin

 Humboldt Penguins live along the coasts of Chile and Peru. They like a hot Mediterranean or desert climate.

They are excellent climbers and can jump with both legs using their flippers to help.

They mainly eat small fish like sardines or anchovies but they also like squid. 

They nest in burrows and after mating they stay together to take care of their offspring. They normally lay 2 eggs. The time needed by the chicks to break the egg and hatch can last as long as three days. Chicks stay in the nest for three or four weeks while parents take turns to feed them

Slender Tailed Meercat

Meercats are members of the mongoose family.  They are found in Africa and live in the desert.  They live in large groups.  Within the group, each meerkat has a job to do and they change their jobs every day. One day you might be a babysitter and the next you might be a lookout.

Meerkat live underground and digs lots of tunnels with many entrances and exits. During the day they are outside and during the night they stow themselves away in the tunnels.  They also shelter from the afternoon heat in the tunnels.

Meerkats have dark rings around their eyes. This helps to see better because it helps to reduce the glare from the sun.  They also have a clear eyelid they can use as a dust shield for their eyes. They can also close their ears to keep out the dirt when they are digging.

Meerkats are omnivores so they eat plants and animals. They eat insects, fruit, birds, eggs and lizards.  They can even eat poisonous scorpions.  They have to forage and hunt every day.  

Prairie Dog

Prairie dogs are named because of their dog like barking sound, but they are a small rodent also known as a ground squirrel. Their tail is 3-4 inches long and they are brown with black eyes and short legs with claws.  They live on the plains in the United States.  They live in small family groups in burrows under the ground.  The family group is called a coterie and is made up of a male, a few females and their young. Several family groups make up a prairie dog town.  Some towns can cover miles and miles of land.

Prairie dogs eat grasses, leafy plants, roots and seed.  They live for 3-4 years and hibernate during the winter.  Predators of prairie dogs are hawks, coyotes, badgers, snakes and eagles. To protect themselves they have sentries who keep a look out and bark if they see danger so the others can run into the burrow.  They make tall mounds at the entrances to their burrows so they can keep a good lookout from high up.

Oriental Short-Clawed Otter

The short clawed otter is the smallest of all the otters.  They are called short clawed otters because their claws are shorter than all other otters.  They use their claws to search through mud and under rocks to find their food.  They also have less webbing than other otters. 

They live in rivers, wetlands and mangroves and they live for 8-10 years.

Otters spend half their day on land and half in the water.

When they swim their tail acts as a rudder for steering and their hind feet propel them through the water. They have two layers of fur and a layer of body fat to keep them warm.

Short clawed otters eat crabs and crayfish as well as frogs and small mammals. 

They live in loose family groups and a breeding pair will have two litters a year. Both parents help raise their young. 

They build a nest of grass and the cubs don’t open their eyes until they are about 40 days old. They don’t learn to eat and swim until they are about 9 weeks old. 

Some noises they make are greeting calls, mating calls and alarm calls.  They make these with yips, barks, whistles and chattering.

Otters are very clever and they leave their crabs out in the sun until the heat cracks their shell open.  Some fishermen have trained them to chase fish into nets.

Giraffe

Giraffes are the tallest land animals on earth. Their necks can be almost 2 metres long. Giraffes live in Africa on open grasslands or savannas.  Giraffe’s spots are made for camouflage because their dark and light spots blends in with the shadows and sunlight in the trees.  Giraffes have one stomach with  4 chambers which helps with digesting their food.  Giraffes have a very powerful kick strong enough to kill a lion. 

They are pregnant for 14-15 months and they give birth standing up.  The calf has to fall 7 feet to the ground.  The purpleness of a giraffes tongue is used as a sunscreen and they are covered in bristly hair to help when they are eating Acacia trees.  They eat leaves and shoots in the trees much higherer than other animals can reach. Their long tongues help pull leaves from the trees.  They can eat over 45kg of leaves and twigs a day.

Giraffes can run up to 55km per hour but only in short bursts.  They sleep for less than 2 hours a day and they can sleep standing up.  They live for up to 25 years in the wild.  The bumps on their heads are called ossicones.  These are to protect the head when males fight.  Female ossicones are smaller and have a tuft of fur on top.  

Giant Anteater

The giant anteater has no teeth but they can eat 35,000 ants every day.  It uses its sharp claws to tear an opening in an anthill and put its long snout in. It can flick its tongue up to 160 times per minute.  It has the longest tongue of any animal and it can extend 2 feet outside its mouth.

The giant anteater is 7 feet long from its snout to its tail.  Anteaters live on their own and have only one baby each year which sometimes rides on its mother’s back.  

Ring Tailed Lemur

Ring Tailed lemurs are my favourite animals.  I like them because of their looks and the way they live. They live in Madagascar in the forest. Their tails are longer than their bodies and have black and white rings which is how they are named. The rings make it easier for other lemurs to see them in the forest.  They have soft, thick, woolly fur.  They have leather-like pads on their feet to help them grip on slippery surfaces.  They are an endangered species because for a long time people have been taking down their forests, hunting them for their meat and stealing them to sell as fancy pets.  They breed well in captivity so there are lots in zoos.  The males put smells from glands in their bottoms onto their tails and wave it at rivals.  This is called stink fighting. 

Ring tailed lemurs spend a third of their day on the ground which is more than any other lemur species.  They eat fruit and leaves as well as flowers, spiders and insects. They make all kinds of noises like wails, howls, purrs and chirps.  Lots of people think they look a bit like cats.  They live in groups if about 17 members. 

They usually have one baby but can also have twins  and carry their babies on their belly’s for the first few weeks then on their backs. Babies begin to climb in the trees when they are 3 weeks old.

They like to sunbathe and sit with their arms oustretched facing the sun.  

Greater Roadrunner

Roadrunners are members of the Cuckoo family and lives in desert areas of the United States. They can fly but live mainly on the ground.  They can run up to 20 miles per hour and prefer to run than to fly because their short wings can only keep them in the air for a few seconds at a time.   Roadrunners mate for life and work together to build their nests which are made from sticks, snakeskin and leaves. They next on low trees or cactus and the female lays 3-10 white eggs.  The male is in charge of incubating the eggs because the female’s body temperature drops at night.  Both parents care for the chicks and they can leave the next within 18 days but the parents care for them for another month.

Pallas Cat

The Pallas' cat is named after a naturalist.  He thought it was an ancestor of the persian cat.

Pallas’ cats are only about the size of a domestic cat but they have a lot of fur so they look bigger. Their fur is twice as long on their belly and tail as it is on their top.  This is because they hunt on snow.  They live in Asia in the cold steppes and grasslands. 

Richmond Castle

Richmond Castle is a Norman Castle. It was begun in the 1070’s by Count Alan Rufus The Red who was a kinsman of William the Conqueror.  He fought at the Battle of Hastings and was granted the land by King William.  He built the castle to defend his land from the Anglo Saxons.

The keep was built by his son Conan after 1154 to show how rich he was.  Later on the castle was taken over by Henry II who built some new towers and houses.

After the fourteenth century the castle was allowed to decay it was completely unused for the next 300 years. 

The castle was owned by the Duke of Richmond in the 1700’s and some repairs were made to the keep.  Artists came to the castle to paint it and it became a fashionable place for tourists to visit.

In 1908 the Duke leased the castle to the army and it was the headquarters of the Northern Territorial Army.  Robert Baden-Power, founder of the Boy Scouts was in command there for a little while. 

During the first World War the castle was used to detain men who were conscientious objectors.  These were people who didn’t want to take part in the war because they didn’t believe in it.  The walls of the rooms where they were kept are covered in graffiti.  Some of the men who were kept here were known as the Richmond Sixteen.

Puffin spotting at Bempton Cliffs

On the weekend we went to Bempton Cliffs to look for Puffins.

Bempton cliffs are made of chalk and they are 400 feet high above the North Sea.  Lots of ships have been wrecked on the cliffs. 

 This is one of the largest seabird colonies in the UK.  A colony is where a large group of birds come to nest at the same time.

250,000 birds come here every year to make their nests and lay their eggs. In April the puffins come here and also lots of gannets and kittiwakes

Gannets

Gannets are big birds and their bodies can be a metre long.  They have long wings for flying for a long time.  They are white with black wing tips and an orangy yellow head.

Gannets only come to land to nest on steep cliffs.  A nestingn colony of gannets is called a gannetry.

Gannets mostly eat fish like herrings, mackerels and sandeels.  They catch them by swimming on the water and sticking their heads underwater to spot their prey. Then they dive down after it.  They also hunt by flying over a shoal of fish and then plunging into the water. It can point its wings backwards to it can enter the water like an arrow.  Gannets can eat so much on one fishing trip that they can hardly take off from the water.  They can fly up to 400 miles on one fishing trip.

The gannet has a special way of greeting its mate.  They hold their wings out and bang their beaks against each other.  Then they sweep their heads down over each others neck.

The male gannet builds the nest and the female lays one egg.  They incubate the egg under their feet and move it on top of their feet just before it hatches. When the baby is ready to leave the nest it will just fly off and land on the sea.

Guillemots and Razorbills

Guillemots and razorbills look almost the same, but the guillemot is dark brown instead of black and they have a long pointy bill.  Razorbills have a more rounded bill.  They are both part of the bird group called Auks.  They nest in large colonies with tens of thousands of birds.  

They hunt by dipping their heads under water to find fish, then they dive down.  They mostly catch fish at around 50 metres deep.  They swallow the fish underwater.  When they are fishing to feed their chicks they can carry the fish back.  Razorbills can carry a few fish at a time and guillemots can only carry one fish.  

Guillemots nest on rocky cliffs and there can be up to 20 birds on every square metre.  This makes it difficult for predators to take their eggs.  Each egg has its own colours and marks so the parents can recognise their own egg.

Razorbills nest in crevices or under rocks and their nests are further apart.  They lay a single egg.  

When the chick is ready to leave the nest they will jump off the cliff ledge and into the sea.  The male parent will follow it and look after it for a few weeks out at sea.  The females stay at the nest to guard it so they can come back next year.  

At Bempton Cliffs there are about 59,000 guillemots and 15,000 razorbills.

Kittiwakes

Kittiwakes are a medium sized gull.  There are more kittiwakes in the world than any other gull.

Kittiwakes nest on narrow ledges and make their nests out of mud and grass.  It has a cup on the top to hold the egg. They have to built a new nest each year.  They lay 2 eggs and both parents look after the chicks.  They store the fish in a special storage section of their gut and regurgitate it for the chicks.

When the chicks are ready to fly they return to the nest to be fed by their parents for a few more weeks.

Puffins

The bird that everyone wants to see is the puffin.  Puffins are sometimes called the Clown of the Sea because of their colourful beaks.  They are a part of the seabird group called auks.  Their beaks are bright yellow, blud and red but in winter they are just grey so they look more like penguins. 

Puffins live out in the ocean and only come to land to breed.  They are better at swimming than flying and their wings are made to fly underwater. They have to beat their wings 400 times per minute to fly. They can dive as deep as 60 metres to find fish. They use their wings as paddles and their feet as a rudder.

Puffins can carry 10 fish in their beaks but once there was a puffin that carried 62.  Their beaks have

backward pointing spines so they can store rows of fish in their mouths without swallowing them

In Spring, puffins return to land to breed. Puffins usually mate for life and the males give the females presents of grass or feathers They use their beaks as picks and their feet as shovels to make burrows.  If they can they use a rabbit burrow.  Puffins lay one egg and both parents share the chick feeding until it leaves the nest.  Baby puffins are called pufflings and when they are ready to leave the nest they do it in the dark.

Razorbills