Animals
By Ms. Cutler's Second Grade Class

The anaconda is a reptile that lives near water and swamps. It’s 24 to 35 feet long, brownish-green with black spots and has a horizontal stripe behind each eye. It gives birth to 20 - 40 babies. The anaconda kills its prey by drowning it. It grabs its prey with its teeth and drags it to the swamp. Then it drowns it and eats it.

Marvin 

A bottlenose dolphin has a long body that grows up to 13 feet. It has a short beak and is dark gray in color. Its diet would usually be small fish, eels, squid and shrimp. The dolphin has a very flexible body and moves very very quickly. It usually swims. Its habitats are mainly coastal waters but also open oceans. A dolphin’s normal gestation is about one year. A single calf is born tail first measuring up to 35-51 inches (90-130 cm) long. It is nursed under water for 18 months before becoming independent.

Bridget K.

My animal is a chamois. It is 40 inches long and has a short tail. The chamois’ horns are hook-shaped. In the winter, the chamois’ fur changes blackish-brown with white patches. It eats alpine vegetation including flowers and fruits, mosses, lichens and pine shoots. You find a chamois on steep craggy slopes and alpine meadows in the summer. They move down to more sheltered woodlands in the winter. It moves on all four legs, is agile and surefooted. It likes to climb mountains. Their horns are used as weapons. The chamois is a mammal.

Jet
Nick 

Ian 

A gibbon is a mammal who lives in the tree canopy of the rainforests or mountains that are at least 10,000 feet high. It has a long black coat and arms. Its hands are special for hanging on treetops. It has a gray or pink throat. There is a thick pad of skin on its rump and an adult grows up to 3 feet tall. Sometimes the gibbon likes to eat insects. It likes leaves, fruits, birds’ eggs and small animals.

Jay 

The Great Barracuda is 6 feet long, has a thin body with darker stripes down its back and a long snout-like mouth with a jutting lower jaw. Some barracudas are reported to have grown up to 8 feet in length. Its young may enter rivers. Its habitats are most tropical oceans of the world. The Great Barracuda eats small fish that swim in schools. It is a strong fast swimmer. It swims in short bursts and when hunting, it suddenly changes direction to catch its prey and then eats it.

Jacob 

A hamster is a rodent with large ears, dark eyes, a small tail, a round furry body and can be seven inches long. My animal is flexible and runs fast. Its classification is a land mammal. A hamster eats seeds, nuts, roots, flowers and vegetables.  Its natural habitats are grasslands and steppes. A hamster likes to sleep and play.

Jennifer

A jaguar is a mammal that is found in Central and South America in tropical forests and swamps. It is a large powerfully built cat with short sturdy legs.  Males may grow up to 8 feet from head to tail. Its fur is yellowish or reddish-brown with large rosette-shaped markings. Jaguars eat some large mammals, small rodents, birds, amphibians and fish. A female jaguar gives birth to 2 to 4 cubs. The cubs are born blind. The mother takes care of them alone for at least 6 months.

Allison 

A manatee is known as a sea cow.  The sea mammal lives in seawater and fresh water off the coasts and coastal rivers in warm areas. It has a long, rounded, thick body that can be dark gray to blackish in color. It can be as long as 15 feet and weighs as much as 3,527 pounds. Its eyes are small, its tail is shaped like a paddle and it has two thin flippers. The manatee eats plants that float and land plants. A manatee has one calf every two years and the birth can be at any time of the year.  The baby weighs 40 pounds and is suckled for 12 to 18 months. It spends most of its time resting at the water’s surface with just its back showing and can be underwater up to 10 minutes before coming up for air.

Beth 
Anthony 

A mosquito is a winged insect that is ¼ to ½ inch long. It has one pair of narrow wings, long back legs and a humped back. You can find mosquitoes wherever there is slow moving water or stagnant pools. When a mosquito bites you, it sucks blood to provide food for its unhatched eggs. The female lays about 300 eggs in water. The eggs hatch in 2 to 3 days.

Pierina 

The polar bear is a mammal that lives in the North Pole. The largest bear (male) grows up to 9½ feet long from head to rump and weighs as much as 1,750 pounds. It has a thick yellowish-white fur coat, long neck and small head. The polar bear walks on the soles of its huge feet which are covered with fur to keep them warm and stop it from slipping on the ice. It eats mainly seals and occasionally whale and walrus carcasses. Polar bears also like small land mammals, sea birds and their eggs.

Ashlyn 

A seal is a sea mammal that lives in the cold waters of the Arctic and Antarctic. It likes to stay close to the coastline. The seal has a large bulky body, a smooth rounded head and a small tail. A three inch layer of blubber keeps it warm. Its whole body is covered with fur. Seals eat fish, sometimes squid and octopuses. They come ashore to rest and breed. Seals are excellent swimmers and divers. They can stay underwater up to 70 minutes. Sometimes, seals even sleep in the water on their backs. 

Melissa

My animal is a starfish. It is an echinoderm that is 6½ inches across and has five short arms. Its color changes from red to purple. Starfish live on the ocean bottoms. The starfish is known as a scavenger. It feeds on algae, sponges, debris and slow moving creatures. After the starfish catches its prey, it turns out part of its stomach through its mouth and spreads it over the prey.

Melissa E.

A tamarin is a small monkey that lives in a tropical forest. It is golden in color and has lots of hair. It is 16 inches long from its head to its rump and has a tail that’s 15 inches long. Tamarins like to eat plant gum, insects, fruit flowers, frogs, lizards, snails and small birds.

Sarah 

The warthog is one of the species belonging to the wild pigs of Europe, Asia and Africa. A warthog’s head and body is 35½ to 59 inches long. It has two pairs of large facial warts and its skin is dark brown to black. A warthog is a mammal. The female warthog is smaller than the male. The warthog lives in Savannah and the open forests of Africa. They eat grass, roots, berries, bark and carrion. Warthogs move around with their snouts to the ground. When warthogs breed, they have up to 2 to 3 babies that are born and reared in holes made out of rocks or an abandoned aardvark’s nest.

Laurel 

Back to Home