Nonfiction Ecology

This audiobook features music and special effects. Listen along and enjoy the fun that is Bears (A Day in the Life). Set over a 24-hour period, meet black bears, grizzlies, and cute polar bear cubs in this kids’ nonfiction audiobook by expert Don Hardeman Jr. Journey into forests around the...

This audiobook reveals the secret lives of salt marshes. Along the coasts, where ocean tides mix salt water with fresh water, nature has created salt marshes - soggy places full of natural wonders. For years, salt marshes were maligned, drained, or filled in. Now salt marshes are valued as the home of fascinating wildlife, including more than twenty different species of birds. Ornithologist and photographer Doug Wechsler takes the reader on a down-and-muddy tour of the year-round activity in these wonderlands.

In Elkhorn Slough, an inlet on the California coast, seagrass grows healthy and strong in the shallow water. This healthy seagrass baffled marine biologist Brent Hughes. The scientist expected this estuary to be overrun with algae, causing the seagrass to die. Why was the seagrass thriving? As Brent investigated, signs pointed to an unexpected player helping to keep the seagrass healthy: sea otters! What do these top predators have to do with an aquatic grass at the opposite end of the food chain?

A tiny honeybee emerges through the wax cap of her cell. Driven to protect and take care of her hive, she cleans the nursery and feeds the larvae and the queen. But is she strong enough to fly? Not yet! Apis builds wax comb to store honey and transfers pollen from other bees into the storage. She defends the hive from invaders. And finally, she begins her new life as an adventurer. The confining walls of the hive fall away as Apis takes to the air, finally free, into a clear blue sky full of promise.

Cuando la tarea de Loran es crear las adaptaciones de un animal y demostrar cómo estas adaptaciones le ayudan a sobrevivir en su entorno, él sabe exactamente lo que quiere hacer. Loran crea una súper especie polivalente usando todo tipo de adaptaciones geniales y únicas tomadas de una variedad de sus animales favoritos, como la cola prensil de los monos, las garras de una pereza e incluso la capacidad de enroscarse como un armadillo.

Late in 2013, snowy owls started showing up in places no one expected to find them - including Florida. What had caused so many of these majestic birds to leave their Arctic home and fly to southern Canada and the United States? Scientists quickly began working to find out. Author Sandra Markle brings together firsthand reports from the scientists involved along with stunning photographs of the owls to explain this rare event, known as an irruption.

Honeybees are a crucial part of our food chain. As they gather nectar from flowers to make sweet honey, these bees also play an important role in pollination, helping some plants produce fruit. But large numbers of honeybees are disappearing every year...and no one knows why. Is a fungus killing them? Could a poor diet be the cause? What about changes to bees' natural habitat? In this real-life science mystery, scientists and beekeepers are working to answer these questions...and save the world's honeybees before it's too late.

Simple science text gives a close-up account of the fascinating world of the dung beetle. When an animal lightens its load, dung beetles race to the scene. They battle over, devour, hoard, and lay their eggs in the precious poop. Dung is food, drink, and fuel for new life - as crucial to these beetles as the beetles are to many habitats, including our own.

Critically acclaimed children’s author Jonah Winter reimagines a true story from 1987. The small Long Island town of Islip has a big problem - 3,168 tons of garbage and no place to put it! So workers pile the smelly refuse on a large barge, hire a tug boat, and send the stuff south to find a final resting place. But as the barge travels from North Carolina to New Orleans and from Mexico to Belize - nobody wants Islip’s rotting mountain of garbage.

Enjoy a day in one of the most dynamic habitats on Earth: the salt marsh. Fun-to-hear, rhyming verse introduces listeners to hourly changes in the marsh as the tide comes and goes. Discover the animals that have adapted to this ever-changing environment as they hunt for food or play in the sun, and learn how the marsh grass survives even when it is covered by saltwater twice a day. An activity on adaptations is included in the "For Creative Minds" section.

Travel north - beyond the Arctic Circle - to Barrow, Alaska, and meet the proud Iñupiaq people. For thousands of years they have hunted whales on the open sea, but now global climate change threatens their way of life. The whale hunt is about to begin, and you're invited to come along! Just as soon as the ice covering the ocean cracks apart, the whales will appear. Set out with the Iñupiaqs in their bearded-sealskin boats to hunt bowhead whales, and witness a tradition that has been followed for 3,000 years.

Dinosaurs were animals that lived millions of years ago. Some dinosaurs looked a lot like the reptiles that live today, such as lizards, crocodiles, and snakes. Many different kinds of dinosaurs lived for about 150 million years all over Earth. Then they died. Scientists are investigating how and why.

From slowing wildfires to planting seeds, one animal is the true superhero that keeps the African savanna in balance. Elephants dig to find salt that other animals lick, their deep footprints collect water for small creatures to drink, and they eat young trees to keep the forest from overtaking the grasslands. In every season, the elephants are there to protect the savanna and its residents - but what would happen if the elephants were only "once upon a time"?

About Reptiles explains the basic characteristics that all reptiles share while offering a look at the animals that fall into this diverse category. An afterword provides further detail on the animals portrayed to inspire young listeners to learn more. In this easy-to-understand introduction to reptiles for children, elementary school teacher and author Cathryn Sill explains what reptiles are, how they live, and what they do.

Meet animals that live in the desert, including camels, lizards, owls, snakes, spiders, and tortoises. Pair this nonfiction title with its fiction companion book, No Bugs Here.

Dive beneath the waves to meet the crabs, fish, turtles, whales, and seaweed that live in the ocean habitat. Pair this nonfiction title with its fiction companion book, The Fish.

What roams through grassland habitats? Discover bison, elephants, giraffes, kangaroos, lions, and zebra. Pair this nonfiction title with its fiction companion book, My Baby Elephant.

Desde reducir incendios hasta plantar semillas, un animal es el verdadero héroe que mantiene la sabana Africana en balance. Los elefantes cavan para encontrar sal que otros animales lamen, sus profundas pisadas recolectan agua que las pequeñas criaturas beben y ellos se comen a los árboles jóvenes para evitar que el bosque sobrepase a las praderas.