NATGEOKIDS.COM • MAY 2020
                                                 COOL
                                                 BOOK
                                                 GIVEAWAY
KROEASLCAUE
     SCCTHGEHUHCOOATEOWTINSENEACSDE
DOG HEROES                           WILD RIDES  FUN COMIC
ADVE RT ISEMENT
           elcome to the Mount Olympus Pet Center in
           Athens {Georgia),where Zeus the Mighty {a
hamster) leads hiscritter companions {who all think
they are godsand goddesses) on Wl1d adwntlnsacross
their kingdom. Will they triumph? Find out in these
hilarious tales, inspired byGreek mythology!
Watch the video, takea personality quiz, and discover
more at lt.::Jo.-::li~........::Z.AAJ..t~~............_.
                  Listen to Greeking Out
                 whereveryou get your
               podcasts.
                                                                                      @2020NMional Geogrophk PlortMr~ LLC
NATIONAL
GEOGRAPHIC
     KiDS
              Editor in Chief and Vice President,                                             IN THIS ISSUE
                    Kids Magazines & Digital
                          Rachel Buchholz                                                     12 5 Amazing Koala Rescues
    Design Director, Magazines Eileen O’Tousa-Crowson                                                Find out how these fur balls were saved by kind humans.
   Editorial Kay Boatner, Senior Editor / Digital Producer;                                   20 World’s                                                   DEPARTMENTS
             Allyson Shaw, Editor / Digital Producer                                              Wildest Rides
                                                                                                                                                              4 Weird
         Photo Shannon Hibberd, Senior Photo Editor                                                 Check out the science                                         But True!
                                                                                                    behind these coasters,
              Production Sean Philpotts, Director                                                   waterslides, and more.                                     5 Guinness
                                                                                                                                                                  World Records
                Digital Laura Goertzel, Director;                                             24 Hound Heroes
        Lisa Bosley, Associate Editor / Digital Producer                                                                                                       6 Incredible Animal
                                                                                                    These brave dogs are                                          Friends
   PUBLISHED BY NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC PARTNERS, LLC                                                   keeping South Africa’s
                                                                                                    rhinos safe.                                               7 Bet You Didn’t Know!
              Chairman of the Board of Directors                                                                                                               8 Brain Candy
                             Peter Rice                                                       26 Sneak Peek!                                                 10 Amazing Animals
                                                                                                                                                             28 Fun Stuff
                     Chief Executive Officer                                                         Read an excerpt from Zeus
                            Gary E. Knell                                                           the Mighty: The Maze of the                         PPOAFGUSETSN1E8–R19!
                                                                                                    Menacing Minotaur.
                        Editorial Director                                                                                                                                 COVER: SUZI ESZTERHAS / MINDEN PICTURES
                          Susan Goldberg                                                              JUST FOR PARENTS                                                     (KOALAS);SEANVILJOEN(DOGS);CHRIS PETER /
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                  Managing Editor, Magazines                                                               For corrections and clarifications,                              STRIKA ENTERTAINMENT (COMIC). PAGE 3:
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Check out these                                                     CHECK OUT
                             outrageous facts.                                                 THE BOOK!
                                             BY MARILYN TERRELL AND MEG WEAVER
                                     AT FRANCE’S ANNUAL
                           PIG-SQUEALING CHAMPIONSHIPS,
                           PEOPLE IMITATE THE ANIMALS WITH
                           SQUEALS, GRUNTS, AND SNUFFLES.
BABIES                     A HORSEFROM                                          BUILDERS OF
HAVE                                                                            JAPAN’S
                           MISSOURI IS SO SMALL                                 NIJO CASTLE
TASTE                                                                           CREATED
BUDS                              SHE SLEEPS IN A                               SQUEAKY
                                                                                FLOORS
IN THEIR                        DOGHOUSE.                                       TO PREVENT
                                                                                STEALTHY
CHEEKS.                                                                         INTRUDERS.
  SPIDER SILK
  IS USED TO MAKE
FISHING NETS
IN SOME COUNTRIES.
THE                                                                             FINLAND
HUMAN                                                                           HOLDS
BODY                                                                            AN
CONTAINS                                                                        ANNUAL
A TINY                                                                          CELL-PHONE-
AMOUNT                                                                          THROWING
OF
                                                                                CONTEST.
GOLD.
                                                                                A VOLCANIC
2,000EARLYLACROSSE MATCHESHAD UP TO                                             ERUPTION
                              PLAYERS.
                                                                                2 MILLION
                                                                                YEARS AGO
                                                                                LEFT A HOLE
                                                                                AS BIG AS
                                                                                RHODE ISLAND.
4 NAT GEO KIDS • MAY 2020  DMITRY LOBANOV / SHUTTERSTOCK (BABY); SONSEDSKA YULIIA / SHUTTERSTOCK (PIG); CB2 / ZOB / WENN /
                             NEWSCOM (HORSES); © RUSSELL KORD / ALAMY (NIJO CASTLE); ZEYNEP DEMIR / SHUTTERSTOCK (PHONE)
GUINNESS                                                                                                  “cat”-Itude
                                                                                                            Is every-
WORLD                                                                                                         thIng.
RECORDS                                                                                          BY BRANDON McINTYRE
   MORE PASTA,                                                                                 SUPER-
        PLEASE!                                                                               LONG
                                                                                               CAT
   Think she saved room for dessert? Michelle Lesco
            holds the record for fastest time to eat a bowl of                                Make room for
       pasta, finishing a plateful of noodles in less than 27                                         this feline.
       seconds. That’s 14 seconds faster than the previous                                    Measuring 47 inches
       record. Lesco is not a picky eater—she also holds                                      from his nose to the
       records for fastest time to eat a hot dog with no hands                                tip of his tail, Barivel
       and most mayonnaise eaten in three minutes. Um, yum?                                   holds the record for
                                                                                              the longest house
                                                                                              cat. He’s as long as a
                                                                                              seven-year-old kid is
                                                                                              tall! Barivel can leap
                                                                                              over some fences
                                                                                              and slide mail off his
                                                                                              owner’s kitchen
                                                                                              counter while
                                                                                              standing. Maybe he
                                                                                              dreams about extra-
                                                                                              long mice.
                                                                                                  BARIVEL HANGS OUT
                                                                                                  IN OWNER CINZIA
                                                                                                  TINNIRELLO’S ARMS.
 HUMAN PYRAMID ON WATER
It’s hard enough building a human pyramid on solid ground. Try making one on water skis! That’s what members of
  the Rock Aqua Jays Water Ski Show Team did when they formed the largest human waterskiing pyramid. The six
four-level pyramids contained 80 people, who held the formation for more than a thousand feet while being pulled
along Wisconsin’s Rock River. Glad no one sneezed.
GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS (ALL). INFORMATION PROVIDED BY © 2020 GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS LIMITED.  5MAY 2020 • NAT GEO KIDS
INCREDIBLE                                      I’M NOT
                                 ANIMAL FRIENDS                            SAYING WHO,
                                                                             BUT ONE OF
                                                                              US NEEDS
                                                                                A BATH.
                                                              BY ANDREA SILEN
                                   BABOON
                                   BEFRIENDS
                                   BUSH BABY
THOMAS MUKOYA / REUTERS (BOTH)   BUSH BABY                    Nairobi, Kenya
                                                              How can you tell that Dina the yellow baboon and Bushy the bush baby are BFFs?
                                  HABITAT Forest treetops     They’re always giving each other bear hugs—even when they’re on the move. Bushy
                                                              often wraps her arms around the baboon’s tummy and holds on upside down as
                                - -inAfrica                   Dina crawls around their enclosure at the Nairobi Animal Orphanage.
                                  WEIGHT 2½ to 32 ounces
                                                                 The critters bonded after arriving at the reserve as infants.“Now Dina acts as
                                - -CRYBABY A bush baby’s      Bushy’s mom,” says Edward Kariuki, an orphanage veterinarian. The baboon
                                - -cry sounds similar to the  protects her pal from other animals and always makes sure Bushy eats enough.
                                  wails of a human baby.         In the wild, bush babies, also known as galagos, are nocturnal, while baboons are
                                  SUPERSIZE EYES These        active during the day. To hang with the baboon, Bushy switched up her sleeping
                                  animals have large eyes     schedule so she’s awake at the same time as Dina. Luckily the motherly baboon
                                  that help them see better   doesn’t scold Bushy for staying up past her bedtime.“The friendship is rare,”
                                  in the dark.                primate expert Barbara Smuts says.“But the animals are great for each other.”
                                                                          - -YELLOWBABOON
                                                                                                                                   HABITAT Savanna and
                                                                                                                                   woodlands of Africa
                                                                                                                                   WEIGHT Adults can
                                                                                                                                   weigh 50 to 70 pounds.
                                                                                                                                   THE NAME GAME Yellow
                                                                                                                                   baboons are named for
                                                                                                                                   their yellow-brown fur.
                                                                                                                                   OPEN WIDE If these
                                                                                                                                   monkeys feel threatened
                                                                                                                                   by a rival, they may yawn
                                                                                                                                   to show the other animal
                                                                                                                                   their teeth.
                                6
7ultracool facts about
                                                things you can’t see
1                                          2 Birds             3
      A microscopic
      animal calleda                          see colors           Earth’s
    water bear                              invisible to          air contains
  tecmanpseurravtiuveres                      humans.
          as low as                                                 tiny bits of
   minus 328°F.
                                                               diamonds from
                 THIS WATER BEAR HAS BEEN                           space.
                   MAGNIFIED 666 TIMES!
                                           5                             6
   4                                              When                     Light
                                                                          travels 18
   A sneeze                                awaterdrop                 million times
shoots out more                                                         faster than
                                             hits a puddle,
  than 40,000                                                               the speed of
 particles from                            it bounces like                       rain.
  the nose and                              a ball until it’s
                                            absorbed.            7
    mouth.
                                                                          Each
                                                                  gecko foot
                                                               has half a million
                                                               tiny bristles for
                                                                   gripping on to
                                                                    surfaces such
                                                                    as walls.
EYE OF SCIENCE / SCIENCE SOURCE                                7MAY 2020 • NAT GEO KIDS
ZHONG ZHENBIN / ANADOLU AGENCY / GETTY IMAGES                                                                                                 BY JULIE BEER AND CHELSEA LIN
                                                 C AN DY
                                                                RJUUDSBOTBEFMRLINOODATRUTHECETKHTSUABN!
                                                                                        PiHnOfAlPaRAPtetBEfdhiDOveyeRUew-slSPoltoorIwlarNdyrd.oCuuIcnTkdY
                                               8 NAT GEO KIDS • MAY 2020
CHECK
                                                                                               OUT
                                                                                               THE
                                                                                              BOOK!
..                                                                                                                                 A 59-FOOT
                                                                                                                                   DUCK FLOATS
  I2na8n1,i89nd0C9Fto0A2hEt,ehrLRaueNLOGcbrroOcbbOaerteaFtaeShrtFnhdwHP.AtuaiIotPcchykifssic                                       IN MACAU,
                                                                                                                                   CHINA.
                                                                                              traCtcoUkOelReSdCRacirtEeEnhAnNoatNsbiTseotSdsu.utcks
                                                                                                  9MAY 2020 • NAT GEO KIDS
AMAANZIIMNAGLS                                                                                          I’M glad I
                                                                                                        don’t have
                                                                                                         mammoth
                                                                                                        haIr stuck
                                                                                                            In my
                                                                                                            teeth.
IT’S OK THAT                                                               Dog
SCOUT IS CHEWING                                                           Digs Up
ON A MAMMOTH                                                         Mammoth
FOSSIL —THEY’RE                                                        Tooth
VERY COMMON!
                                                                     Whidbey Island, Washington         as part of a mammoth molar.
           WOOLLY MAM-                                               Scout the Labrador retriever is a     A relative of today’s elephants,
           MOTHS WERE                                                puppy paleontologist: The dog
           ABOUT THE SIZE                                            sniffed out a 13,000-year-old      woolly mammoths lived in the
           OF AFRICAN                                                woolly mammoth tooth in his        Pacific Northwest region of the
           ELEPHANTS,                                                owner’s backyard!                  United States between 10,000
           BUT WITH MUCH                                                                                and 100,000 years ago.“So mam-
           SMALLER EARS.                                                At first owner Kirk Lacewell    moth fossils are fairly common in
                                                                     thought the six-inch-long fossil-  this part of the country,” museum
                                                          A RULER    ized chomper was a rock.“Then it   curator Greg Wilson says.
                                                          SHOWS THE  hit me that dogs don’t usually
                                                          TOOTH’S    carry rocks around,” he says.         Lacewell now keeps the trea-
                                                          SIZE.                                         sure on a mantle at home. But
                                                                        Lacewell emailed photos to the  Scout probably wishes the fossil
  10 NAT GEO KIDS • MAY 2020                                         University of Washington’s Burke   was still his chew toy!
                                                                     Museum, where a paleontologist
                                                                     immediately recognized the object                        —Aaron Sidder
No
                                                                                                          junk
                                                                                                          maIl!
Whale
   “Thanks” Rescuers
Gulf of California, Mexico   could escape. She swam                          possibly even expressing             Look Out,
The scared humpback          away, and the boaters                           her thanks.”                          Mail
whale wheezed as she         thought they’d never see                                                            Carriers!
bobbed in the water.         her again. But suddenly she                        Scott Landry of the
Tangled in a discarded net,  burst from the water,                           Marine Animal Entanglement
she couldn’t move, eat, or   doing a set of giant jumps.                     Response isn’t so sure.“She
breathe regularly.                                                           could’ve been acting oddly
                                “I’ve rarely seen leaps                      because she was in shock,”
   A group of boaters        like this,” says whale con-                     he says.“What’s important
noticed the distressed       servationist Michael                            is that no one was hurt
whale and pulled up beside   Fishbach, who was on the                        and the whale is free, just
her. They began cutting      boat.“She seemed to be                          as she’s meant to be.”
away the net with a knife.   showing pure joy—and                            —Aline Alexander Newman
After an hour, the mammal
    THIS
 IS MORE
 SPLASHY
  THAN A
THANK-YOU
    CARD.
                                                                             THE FREED                    Highbridge, England
                                                                             HUMPBACK’S                   Mail carriers definitely didn’t want a
                                                                             JUMBO JUMPS                  special delivery from these seagulls.
                                                                             WERE CAUGHT                  Every time male postal workers
                                                                             ON CAMERA.                   walked by, the local birds would dive
                                                                                                          beak-first straight for their heads.
        DOG                                                                                               The only time the sneak attacks
        Whidbey                                                                                           stopped: When female letter carriers
        Island,                                                                                           came on the job!
        Washington
                                                                                                             What could’ve ruffled the gulls’
        WHALE                                                                                             feathers so much? “We think the
        Gulf of California,                                                                               birds might have been protecting
        Mexico                                                                                            their babies and were threatened
                                                                                                          by the men,” says Richard Hall, for-
       SEAGULLS                                                                                           merly of the United Kingdom’s Royal
       Highbridge,                                                                                        Mail service. But animal behavior
       England                                                                                            expert Petra Mertens says that the
                                                                                                          birds probably weren’t favoring the
KIRK LACEWELL (SCOUT, BOTH, AND TOOTH); OZJA / SHUTTERSTOCK (MAMMOTH);                                    women on purpose.“The gulls might
© MICHAEL FISHBACH (WHALE); SOUTH WEST NEWS SERVICE (SEAGULL, MAIL CARRIER)                               have been threatened by something
                                                                                                          only the birds could spot,” she says.
                                                                                                          Although we’ll never really know
                                                                                                          what caused the attacks, the postal
                                                                                                          workers are just happy the dive-
                                                                                                          bombing birds finally retreated.
                                                                                                                             —Amanda Pressner
                                                                                                          11MAY 2020 • NAT GEO KIDS
5
  AMAZING
KROEASLCAUES
» HOW THESE FUR BALLS WERE                                                             ASIA OPCAEACIF                 ICN
             SAVED BY KIND HUMANS                                                        AUSTRALIAIONCDEIAANN
                  BY SCOTT ELDER                                                       ANTARCTICA
                  A young koala scrambles up a eucalyptus tree. It’s not    AUSTRALIA
                  trying to grab one of the tasty leaves it loves snacking
                  on—it’s trying to get away from the flames and smoke                                     Tasman
                  swirling in the forest beneath it.                                                          Sea
                     Earlier this year and in late 2019, a record number    INDIAN                         Where
                  of wildfires raged through woodland habitats in           OCEAN                          koalas
                  Australia, destroying many of the trees koalas live in                                   live
                  and rely on for food. The fires burned across some
                  65,000 square miles, an area the size of Florida.         GERRY ELLIS / MINDEN PICTURES
                  Reports show that more than 8,000 koalas might have           (MAIN); MARTIN WALZ (MAP)
                  been killed in these fires, alongside hundreds of mil-
                  lions of other animals.
                     Koalas aren’t endangered, but they face many
                  other threats in addition to wildfires. Starvation, dog
                  attacks, car accidents, and disease have also put the
                  fuzzy mammals in danger. Luckily brave people step up
                  every day to help these lovable marsupials like the one
                  described above. Read on for five heartwarming koala
                  rescues.
        12 NAT GEO KIDS • MAY 2020
13MAY 2020 • NAT GEO KIDS
Instead of        THREAT BUSHFIRE                    A raging fire has                                              MADDIE BREATHES
            outrunning fires,    SAVED AT CURRUMBIN                         passed, so the                                           IN SLEEPING GAS
          koalas usually climb                                       koala cautiously scoots                                        WHILE DOCTORS
            trees to escape.                   WILDLIFE HOSPITAL;    down her eucalyptus                                            TREAT HER SO SHE
                                               CURRUMBIN, AUSTRALIA  tree toward the                                                WON’T BE IN ANY
1RESCUE                                                              ground. But before                                             PAIN.
                                                                     she makes it, her paws
                                                                     grasp part of the                      MADDIE
                                                                     blackened tree trunk
                                                                     that’s still smoldering            her burns to heal quickly.”
                                                                     from the fire. The koala has          Less than a week later,
                                                                     badly burned her paws and
                                                                     other parts of her body.           Maddie’s ready for a meal. But
                                                                                                        not just any eucalyptus leaf
                                                                        Hours later, wildlife rescue    will do.“Koalas all have their
                                                                     organization Wildcare Australia    favorite,” Pyne says. Leaves
                                                                     sends a team to find animals       that they’re not used to
                                                                     injured in the bushfire, which     eating are harder for them to
                                                                     happened in 2019. They spot        digest, or just taste yucky. But
                                                                     and capture the koala—now          Maddie finishes off the batch
                                                                     named Maddie—and rush her          of leaves she’s given.
                                                                     to Currumbin Wildlife Hospital.
                                                                                                           A month after the fire, she’s
                                                                        Maddie also has burns on        still recovering at the hospi-
                                                                     her nose and ears, so her care-    tal, but Pyne’s hopeful that
                                                                     givers apply a cooling ointment    Maddie will be released soon.
                                                                     to her injuries. She’s also        “It won’t be long before
                                                                     starving.“When a koala’s in        she’s taking naps in a forest
                                                                     pain, it won’t eat,” says Michael  instead of a hospital,” he says.
                                                                     Pyne, the senior veterinarian
                                                                     at the hospital.“So we need
                                                                     W ith his belly full of                                 Koalas
                                                                            eucalyptus leaves(a
                                                                     koala’s preferred meal), the                            can eat up to
                                                                     sleepy marsupial finds a
                                SLASH                                sturdy branch to nap on.                                two pounds
                                                                     Suddenly a crash of heavy
                                                                     machinery jolts the koala          At the center,       of eucalyptus
                                                                     awake—loggers are knock-                                leaves a day.
                                                                     ing down trees to build a          rehabilitators
                                                                     highway through the forest.
                                                                     The frightened koala clings        feed their starving
                                                                     to the tree for safety. But
                                                                     like all the other trees in the    patient bunches of euca-
                                                                     area, this one soon falls.
                                                                                                        lyptus leaves. Since the koala
                                                                        Several weeks later, a
                                                                     resident in a nearby neigh-        has two long scratches that
                                                                     borhood is stunned to spot
                                                                     the koala atop a small bush.       run from his shoulder to his
                                                                     The animal has somehow man-
                                                                     aged to survive the logging,       belly—probably from a falling
                                                                     but without any eucalyptus
                                                                     trees nearby, he’s had nothing     tree—his caregivers name
                                                                     to eat for weeks. The passerby
                                                                     calls Friends of the Koala care    him Slash. They decide to wait
                                                                     center to come rescue the
                                                                     scared animal.                     until his wounds heal before
2RESCUE                                                                                                 releasing him back to the
                                                                                                        wild. After two months, they
                                  THREAT STARVATION                                                     do just that.
                                SAVED AT FRIENDS OF THE
                                                                                                        “Slash has been seen several
                                               KOALA;
                                               EAST LISMORE,                                            times since his release,” care
                                               AUSTRALIA
                                                                                                        coordinator Susannah Keogh
                                                                                                        says.“He’s a local legend.”
14 NAT GEO KIDS • MAY 2020                                           JOUAN RIUS / NPL / MINDEN PICTURES (BUSHFIRE KOALA); CURRUMBIN WILDLIFE HOSPITAL (MADDIE, FUGI);
                                                                      FRIENDS OF THE KOALA (SLASH); JUERGEN & CHRISTINE SOHNS / MINDEN PICTURES (STARVATION KOALA);
                                                                          MITSUAKI IWAGO / MINDEN PICTURES (DISEASE KOALAS); FREDER / GETTY IMAGES (HEALTHY FORESTS)
3RESCUE                                                                                        HEALTHY
                                                                                               KOALAS,
     THREAT DISEASE                                                              Koalas can    HEALTHY
                                                                                               FORESTS
   SAVED AT CURRUMBIN                                                      spread disease
                                                                                               Sure, koalas are adorable—
                   WILDLIFE                                                to one another      but they’re also helping
                                                                                               scientists better understand
                   HOSPITAL;                                               through eating a    climate change.
                   CURRUMBIN,                                             nutritious type of      Koalas are what biologists
                                                                                               call an indicator species, a
                   AUSTRALIA     Hospital, veterinarians see     the             poop called   species whose health helps
                                 that the disease has also       leaves.             pap.      scientists predict how well a
H igh above the ground           infected Fugi’s bladder and                                   habitat is doing. That means if
      in a eucalyptus tree,      kidneys.“This disease is        Too much                      koalas are thriving, so is their
a koala struggles to reach       treatable if caught early in                                  environment. But if they’re
his leafy meal. His eyes are     koalas,” says Michael Pyne,     of an antibiotic might        not, the ecosystem is most
swollen almost completely        the senior veterinarian at                                    likely in trouble too.
shut, and he has a dark stain    the hospital.“But you have to   accidentally wipe out the
on his rump. They’re signs of    be careful with how much                                         Today only about 300,000
a common disease that’s hit-     medicine you give them.”        bacteria they need to         koalas are left, and scien-
ting koalas hard.                                                                              tists think climate change
                                    The danger has to do with    digest eucalyptus.            is making things worse.
   A passerby spots the          the eucalyptus leaves that
sickly looking animal and        koalas eat. The leaves are      But Fugi reacts well to
calls a wildlife hotline, which  toxic to most animals, but
dispatches rescuers to fetch     koalas have developed a spe-    the medicine. Three months
the koala. The marsupial         cial bacteria in their bellies
manages to avoid capture         that lets them safely digest    later, the koala is declared
for about a month before
rescuers finally catch him,                                      disease-free and returned
earning him the nickname
“Fugi,” short for fugitive.                                      to his home.
   Once at Currumbin Wildlife                                    “Releasing these animals
                                                                 is the goal,” Pyne says.“The
                                                                 more koalas we have in
                                                                 the wild, the better off
                                                                 Australia is.”
                                                                           FUGI                Average temperatures are
                                                                                               rising around the world, and
                                                                                               heat waves and droughts are
                                                                                               becoming more frequent.
                                                                                               In parts of the koala’s range
                                                                                               where the weather is drier and
                                                                                               hotter, thick-furred koalas are
                                                                                               overheating. High tempera-
                                                                                               tures and drought can also
                                                                                               weaken or kill eucalyptus
                                                                                               trees, and increase the risk of
                                                                                               forest fires like the ones that
                                                                                               burned in the country during
                                                                                               late 2019 and early 2020.
                                                                                                  Understanding the threats
                                                                                               koalas face can help us protect
                                                                                               them in the future. And by
                                                                                               understanding how climate
                                                                                               change impacts koalas, scien-
                                                                                               tists might get a better idea of
                                                                                               how climate change impacts
                                                                                               other species too.
                                                                                 GET TIPS ON HOW YOU CAN HELP ANIMALS
                                                                                     LIKE KOALAS. natgeokids.com/may
                                                                                               15MAY 2020 • NAT GEO KIDS
5RESCUE
   Koalas are                                                   THREAT CAR ACCIDENT                KEMPSEY WAZZA
 safer in trees,
where predators                                               SAVED AT PORT MACQUARIE            can grab with their sharp
   can’t reach                                                                                   claws.”
                                                                             KOALA HOSPITAL;
      them.                                                                                         Hospital staff expect the
                                                                             PORT MACQUARIE,     worst when the patient
4RESCUE                         TUNGSTEN                                                         arrives at the hospital. But
                                                                             AUSTRALIA           aside from some deep cuts
  THREAT DOG ATTACK             to Friends of the Koala care                                     the koala received from
                                center. There, nurse Marley   A female koala emerges             being dragged, the animal
SAVED AT FRIENDS OF THE         Christian gives the koala—             on the side of the road.  wasn’t in terrible shape.
                                called Tungsten—antibiotics    Less than 200 feet away are       Named Kempsey Wazza,
               KOALA;           to keep his arm from getting   some trees. But the koala has     she suffered no broken bones
                                infected. His wounds are       to cross a busy four-lane         or fractures—unusual for a
               EAST LISMORE,    cleaned and bandaged.          highway to get there.             marsupial struck by a vehicle.
               AUSTRALIA           Tungsten spends the first      The marsupial is halfway          After 10 days, Kempsey
                                couple of days being hand-     across the road when she’s        Wazza’s bandages are
H ungry for tasty leaves,       fed small leaves from a low    suddenly struck by a vehicle      removed; about a month
       a koala crawls on the    perch. But on the third day,   and clings to the car’s front     after that she’s released
ground toward some euca-        Christian is thrilled to see   end. Six miles later, the         back into the wild.“Not all
lyptus trees at the edge of     the koala perched on the       driver hears an odd noise and     of our patients are so lucky,”
a forest. He looks and listens  highest spot of a tall log     pulls over to investigate. He’s   Flanagan says.“Kempsey
for any threats. He isn’t as    stand in the enclosure.        shocked to see the koala,         Wazza is one tough koala.”
safe away from his trees,       “That’s when we knew he’d      which drops out from the car
where koalas have few           be able to survive in the      and scampers toward nearby
predators. Suddenly he          wild again,” she says. Just    trees. The driver calls Port
hears barking from koalas’      three months later, Tungsten   Macquarie Koala Hospital to
deadliest predator: a dog.      was released back into his     report the accident.
The koala awkwardly scram-      forest home.
bles toward the nearest                                           “This is not the first koala
tree as the unleashed dog                                      that’s come to us like this,”
charges. Unfortunately, the                                    hospital director Cheyne
koala isn’t quick enough to                                    Flanagan says.“They’re able
escape the canine.                                             to hold on to branches in
                                                               strong winds, so their instinct
   Although the distressed                                     is to cling to whatever they
creature has deep bites on
his arm, he’s alive. A park                                                                          The Australian
ranger drives the marsupial                                                                      government is placing
                                                                                                 “Koala Crossing” signs
                                                                                                 near roads where the
                                                                                                 marsupials live to help
                                                                                                   drivers stay alert.
CHECK OUT MORE AWESOME AUSTRALIAN ANIMALS!
                   natgeokids.com/may
16 NAT GEO KIDS • MAY 2020      SUZI ESZTERHAS / MINDEN PICTURES (DOG ATTACK KOALA, SLEEPING SLOTH); FRIENDS OF THE KOALA (TUNGSTEN); PORT MACQUARIE KOALA HOSPITAL
                                    (WAZZA); DAVID CHONG / ALAMY (CAR ACCIDENT KOALA); MARCO SIMONI / GETTY IMAGES (SLEEPING KOALA); SASHKIN / SHUTTERSTOCK (CROWN)
SHAOLANWZIMDIEOASWTL N:                                                                                                                               A KOALA CLINGS TO A
                                                                                                                                                      TREE WHILE IT NAPS
             Koalas and sloths are                                                                                                                    AT LONE PINE KOALA
             so slow, it’s sometimes                                                                                                                  SANCTUARY IN BRIS-
             hard to tell if they’re                                                                                                                  BANE, AUSTRALIA.
             awake or asleep! But
             which truly deserves
             the title of the laziest?
KOALA                                                   Koalas doze about 18 hours      Koalas have little reason to leave the  -.•           It takes too much effort for
                                                        a day—almost twice as much      eucalyptus trees they live in, since                  koalas to drink water the
                                                        as sloths. That means they’re   they’re surrounded by their favorite    .•••••••••••  normal way. They get most
                                                        awake only about 25 percent     food. When they venture to the                        of the moisture they need
                                                        of the time.                    ground, though, they can break into a                 from the eucalyptus leaves
                                                                                        gallop, moving up to 18 miles an hour.
                                     Eastern Australia                                                                          • they eat.
VS. WHERE TIME FOR                                                                      MOVING IN                                             H2O
          THEY LIVE A NAP?                                                              SLOW MOTION                                           OR NO?
SLOTH                                Forest canopies    These animals might appear      Sloths spend much of their lives just                 While sloths get some
                                     of Central and     to be asleep, but they’re       hanging around, suspended from trees                  hydration from the
          (Three-toed and two-toed)  South America      often actually awake. In fact,  with their long, curved claws. When                   fruits they eat, they get
                                                        they sleep only about 9.6       they do make a move, they travel only                 water mostly by licking
                                                        hours each day. So sloths       about 0.1 mile an hour, or about nine                 it off of leaves.
                                                        move slowly, but they’re not    feet a minute. This makes sloths the
                                                        very sleepy.                    slowest mammals in the world.
                                                                                        A BROWN-THROATED  WINNER: KOALA
                                                                                        THREE-TOED SLOTH
                                                                                        SNOOZES IN A      Believe it or not, koalas are actually lazier
                                                                                        SANCTUARY IN      than sloths! Although sloths move slowly,
                                                                                        COSTA RICA.       they don’t sleep most of their days away.
                                                                                                          Despite their near-total lack of trying,
                                                                                                          koalas win the crown in this showdown!
                                                                                                                                                   CHECK
                                                                                                                                                    OUT
                                                                                                                                                     THE
                                                                                                                                                   BOOK!
                                                                                                          FOR MORE CRITTER CONTESTS,
                                                                                                          WATCH ANIMAL SHOWDOWN.
                                                                                                               natgeokids.com/may
                                                                                                                      17NAT GEO KIDS
\
                                                                          \.
                                                        -\
                                                                                                             '.
                                                                                                \
                                                                                                                                                       ~
A red-eyed tree frog has suction-cup-like toes and feet that produce a gluey mucus to help it climb and stick to surfaces. One of
this frog’s calls sounds like a baby rattle. The amphibian uses its long, sticky tongue to catch prey like crickets and moths.
OUTWORLD’S WILCHECKTHESCIENCE
                            BEHIND  THESE
                                           C  OASTERS, WAT
                                                  BY STEPHANIE      E  R  S
                                                  WARREN DRIMMER
                                                                             L  I                                    D
                                              All rides are fun,
                                              but many also use
                                              cool technology and
                                              scientific forces to
                                              really push the limits.
                                              Discover the science
                                              behind five of the
                                              coolest amusement-
                                              park rides around
                                              the world.
20 NAT GEO KIDS • MAY 2020               SIX FLAGS OVER GEORGIA (PANDEMONIUM, BOTH); CHRIS PETER / SEAWORLD SAN
                                    ANTONIO (BREAKAWAY FALLS, BOTH). SHIKHEI GOH / GETTY IMAGES (FROG, PAGES 18-19)
‹‹                              PANDEMONIUM                                                hurl ometer
                                WHERE Six Flags Over Georgia in Austell, Georgia
                                THE RIDE Pandemonium             COOL SCIENCE:
                                takes riders to new heights,
                                swinging them nearly 150 feet    INERTIA
                                aboveground—about as high
                                as a 15-story building. Forty    After a powerful motor gives this ride, called a pendu-
                                riders strap in around the rim   lum, a push to get started, it continues to move back
                                of the disk-like ride. Then the  and forth. That’s because of the force of inertia, which
                                disk starts swinging from side   is when an object keeps moving unless it’s stopped
                                to side until it reaches its     by an outside force. Thank goodness for a computer
                                peak height, sailing at about    program, which eventually tells Pandemonium to
                                70 miles an hour.                stop—otherwise you’d be stuck on a never ending
                                                                 thrill ride!
DES, AND MORE.                  IHU’S BREAKAWAY FALLS hurl ometer
                  RIDERS START  WHERE Aquatica San Antonio in San Antonio, Texas           COOL SCIENCE:
                  WITH A DROP
                  IN A FIBER-   THE RIDE Climb 118 steps to reach the top of this          GRAVITY
                  GLASS CHUTE.  mega-slide, where you’ll step inside a clear tube. Once
                                you give the thumbs-up, the floor beneath your feet        Once the trapdoor opens beneath the
                                will suddenly disappear! You’ll plunge down the water-     rider, gravity takes over. Gravity, or the
                                slide before hitting the first of several corkscrew turns  force that pulls everything toward
                                before zooming to a halt in the pool below—all in          Earth’s center, tugs the rider down at
                                about 10 seconds.                                          up to 24 feet per second, nearly as fast
                                                                                           as the world’s speediest human runner.
                                                                                           Usually a drop like that would be slowed
                                                                                           by friction, or the resistance that
                                                                                           occurs when one object moves against
                                                                                           another(sort of like when you go down
                                                                                           a playground slide). But on this ride, the
                                                                                           water reduces friction and allows you
                                                                                           to slide down even faster. That makes
                                                                                           for a major splash at the bottom.
                                                                                           21MAY 2020 • NAT GEO KIDS
hurl ometer
INCREDICOASTER                                                    hurl ometer
WHERE Disney California Adventure Park                          DO-DODONPA
in Anaheim, California
                                                                WHERE Fuji-Q Highland in Fujiyoshida, Japan
THE RIDE Disney California Adventure’s newest roller
coaster follows superhero family the Incredibles as they—       THE RIDE Do-dodonpa features the fastest acceleration
and riders—have to catch up to baby Jack-Jack. The ride         of any roller coaster in the world, hurtling from zero to 112
whisks passengers through three enclosed tunnels, plus a        miles an hour in under two seconds. That’s an acceleration
series of steep climbs and drops in between each, up to 55      rate twice as fast as some of NASA’s spacecraft launchers.
miles an hour. But the most thrilling moment comes when         Once riders reach maximum speed, they zoom 160 feet
riders plummet down a 108-foot drop before zipping up and       aboveground to the highest part of the coaster before
then turning upside down in the ride’s only loop-the-loop.      dropping back down again.
COOL SCIENCE:                                                   COOL SCIENCE:
CENTRIFUGAL FORCE                                               ACCELERATION
Your safety belt isn’t the only thing keeping you in your seat  The secret behind Do-dodonpa’s acceleration, or how fast
when a roller coaster turns you upside down. You can thank      an object can change its speed, is its special launch system.
centrifugal force, which draws objects moving in a circle       Traditional roller coasters put their cars in motion by drag-
(in this case, the roller coaster car zooming around the loop-  ging them to the top of a hill with a metal chain, then letting
the-loop) away from the circle’s center (here, the empty        gravity and kinetic energy(see next page) do the rest. But
space in the middle of the loop). The force pushes you against  Do-dodonpa accelerates its cars with a blast of compressed
the coaster car, giving you the feeling of being squashed into  air at the beginning of the ride. The molecules in the com-
your seat—and keeps you from flying out.                        pressed air are packed together more tightly than they are
                                                                in regular air, making compressed air denser, or heavier, than
PANDEMONIUM                        DO-DODONPA                   regular air. The compressed air packs more of a, well, punch to
                                                                accelerate riders into a more scream-worthy start.
Austell, Georgia                   Fujiyoshida,
                                   Japan
INCREDICOASTER
Anaheim, California
                     IHU’S         VALKYRIA
                     BREAKAWAY
                     FALLS         Gothenburg,
                                   Sweden
                     San Antonio,
                     Texas
22 NAT GEO KIDS • MAY 2020                      THE WALT DISNEY COMPANY IS A MAJORITY OWNER OF NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC PARTNERS. JOSHUA SUDOCK / DISNEYLAND
                                                      RESORT (INCREDICOASTER); COURTESY OF FUJI KYUKO CO., LTD (DO-DODONPA); MARTIN CARLSSON / ALAMY (VALKYRIA)
hurl ometer                                                                       WATCH COOL COASTERS IN ACTION.
                                                                                           natgeokids.com/may
VALKYRIA
                                                                                               23NAT GEO KIDS
WHERE Liseberg in
Gothenburg, Sweden
THE RIDE Just before
this coaster makes its most
dramatic plunge, it pauses.
Eighteen riders hang in the air,
waiting for the steep drop.
Then the coaster zooms down
into an underground tunnel at
about 65 miles an hour. Less
than two seconds later, riders
pop back up aboveground and
blast through three loop-the-
loops before the ride is over.
COOL SCIENCE:
KINETIC ENERGY
By the time riders are poised
at the top of Valkyria, the ride
has built up potential, or
stored, energy. As it zips down,
that potential energy becomes
kinetic energy—the energy of
motion. This transformation of
energy(along with gravity) is
what gives the ride its spine-
tingling speed, as well as what
propels it to blast up from the
underground tunnel into the
next part of the ride.
                                                                   RIDERS DROP
                                                                   NEARLY 165 FEET
                                                                   TOWARD AN
                                                                   UNDERGROUND
                                                                   TUNNEL.
HOUNDHEROES
DISCOVER HOW THESE DOGS ARE KEEPING SOUTH AFRICA’S RHINOS SAFE. BY PAUL STEYN
                                                                       PHOTOS BY SEAN VILJOEN
Apack of black-and-tan hound dogs
              surround a tree in South Africa’s
                Kruger National Park. The dogs
                 are jumping at the base of the
                   tree, barking at something in
the branches above: They’ve
trapped a rhinoceros poacher.
South Africa is home to about 80 percent
of the world’s last remaining rhinos. But some
8,000 rhinos have been poached, or illegally
hunted, in South Africa since 2008. That’s
because the demand for rhino horns has gone       1
up—they’re mostly smuggled into Asia to be
used in medicine, even though they have no
medicinal value. More than half of these rhinos DURING A TRAINING
                                                  EXERCISE, JOHAN VAN
were killed in Kruger and surrounding areas.      STRAATEN RELEASES
   To help protect the species, officials came    HOUND DOGS IN SOUTH
                                                  AFRICA’S KRUGER
up with a clever idea that was perfect for        NATIONAL PARK.
sniffing out bad guys: Texas hound dogs.
24 NAT GEO KIDS • MAY 2020                                             MARTIN WALZ (MAP)
ATLANTIC OCE                 AFRICA
                                               ZIMBAB
  GOING TO                                                                            S~O-'UUT~H         OCEAN  fast. The noisy copters also      caught three more poachers;
  THE DOGS                         BOTSWANA                                           A.PFu~RP.I!C1.'AA         scare off dangerous predators.    the day after that, another
                                                                     .~,                                                                          two.“To have the hounds catch
  Back in 2013, rhino poaching                                                                                     Braman admits to being a       poachers from the start was
  in South African parks was on                                       ,:.._                                     little nervous about what the     proof we were doing some-
  the rise. So the agency that                                            ·A~N,....,  INDIAN                    dogs might encounter.“They        thing right,” Carter says.
  oversees Kruger paired local                                                                                  had never seen an elephant
  dogs with rangers to track                                         WE                                         before—never seen a lion.         MORE HOUNDS =
  the poachers. But the human-                                                                                  Never been in a helicopter.”      SAFER RHINOS
  dog pairs weren’t able to keep                Kruger                                MOZAMBIQUE
  up with the fleeing poachers.               National                                                             On the ground, 10 excited      Before the Texas hounds
                                                                                      IOCNEDIAANN               hounds immediately picked up      arrived, rangers were nabbing
     “Building a tracking dog                        Park                                                       the scent trail. Fitted with GPS  only about 5 percent of known
  team is a huge job,” says                                                                                     collars, they bolted across the   poachers. But with the new
  Theresa Sowry, who runs the      SOUTH                                                                        savanna past herds of wilde-      dogs on the prowl, more than
  Southern African Wildlife        A F R I C A ESWATINI                                                         beest, darting through bushes     half of those bad guys are now
  College, a wildlife manage-                                                                                   and over countless eight-foot-    being caught.
  ment and training facility       barking as the escapee                                                       tall termite mounds. After
  near Kruger.“You need the        climbed up the nearest tree.                                                 they’d covered about 10 miles,       Soon the hounds in South
  right genetics and the right                                                                                  Braman got a call from one of     Africa started having puppies
  training to bring it together.”     “We had no idea if these                                                  the helicopters trailing the      of their own. According to
  These dogs didn’t have all       dogs would catch poachers in                                                 dogs from the air: The pack       Carter, these dogs may one day
  that, so they didn’t catch       Africa, which has a different                                                had just caught up with the       be sent to other areas of
  many poachers.                   landscape—and different                                                      four poachers.                    Africa that need hounds to
                                   animals—from Texas,” says                                                                                      catch wildlife poachers. Thanks
  TICKET TO TEXAS                  Ivan Carter, whose conserva-                                                    With information from the      to the hounds’ protection,
                                   tion foundation introduced                                                   hounds’ GPS collars, Braman       rhinos and other animals are
  Then in early 2017, Sowry        Braman to Sowry. But they                                                    was easily able to find the       getting a chance to roam free.
  heard about a group of           wanted to try.                                                               dogs.“When we arrived, they
  dogs—black-and-tan                                                                                            had one guy cornered against      Adapted from a September 2019 National
  hounds—used by Texas law            Along with dog trainer                                                    a tree,” he says.“And we took
  enforcement officers to          Zeke Ortiz, Braman spent the                                                 all the poachers into custody.    Geographic online Wildlife Watch article
  track down escaping prison       next several months training                                                 No one could believe it.”
  inmates. So she headed to        his hounds to improve their                                                                                       Check out more heroic dogs.
  Refugio, Texas, to see them.     scent-tracking skills and                                                       The next day, the team              natgeokids.com/may
                                   barking abilities(so they’re
     At the ranch of law           loudly able to alert their                                                   3
  enforcement official Joe         human helpers to where they
  Braman, Sowry and her team       are at any time). Then 20 of                                                 THE HOUNDS TRAP A
  watched 10 of Braman’s dogs      the best hounds were off to                                                  “POACHER” IN A TREE.
  trail a pretend prisoner in the  South Africa.                                                                IF THIS WERE A REAL
  brush. The excited hounds                                                                                     POACHER, THE HOUNDS
  would split up and compete,      EARLY SUCCESS                                                                WOULD KEEP HIM
  howling to be the first to pick                                                                               TRAPPED UNTIL LAW
  up the scent.                    Braman had only just arrived                                                 ENFORCEMENT ARRIVED.
                                   at the Southern African
     They would then work          Wildlife College when the first
  together as a team to follow     call came from the savanna.
  the scent while deputies         Poachers had killed a rhino—
  trailed behind. Once they        and they were on the run. The
  caught up with the human,        Texas dogs were rushed into
  the hounds surrounded him,       two helicopters(they all
                                   couldn’t fit in just one), which
2                                  get the hounds to the site
WHILE THE HOUNDS TRACK
A PRETEND POACHER, THEIR
TRAINERS TRACK THEIR
LOCATION THROUGH GPS
COLLARS THE DOGS WEAR.
GPS COLLAR
                                                                                                                                      25MAY 2020 • NAT GEO KIDS
THE MAZE OF
                                                        THE MENACING
                                                        MINOTAUR
                                                        BY CRISPIN BOYER
                                                        ART BY ANDY ELKERTON
                                                        Zeus, a tiny hamster with a big ego,
                                                        is out to prove that he’s worthy of ruling
                                                        over his fellow pets at Mount Olympus
                                                        Pet Center, who—like him—are all named
                                                        after Greek gods and goddesses.
                                                           In this excerpt from Zeus the Mighty:
                                                        The Maze of the Menacing Minotaur,
                                                        Zeus and his best pal, Demeter the
                                                        grasshopper, have entered a mysterious
                                                        maze below the pet center to investi-
                                                        gate the source of some stifling heat.
                                                        But something terrifying might be
                                                        standing in their path …
Zeus the Mighty was not lost. He’d been                    “I swear we’ve walked under every part of Greece,”
           wandering in a warren of metal passages      Demeter muttered, her antennae sagging.“It’s a
           for the past hour. He was deep under-        good thing we’re not lost or I’d be worried—”
           ground, a long way from his palace on
Mount Olympus. He wasn’t even sure if he was still in      “What in blazes is that?” Zeus interrupted as
Greece. But Zeus was definitely, absolutely, not lost.  they rounded a corner. The two had reached the
                                                        entrance to a much larger cavern. Heat crashed
   “Are we lost?” asked Demeter, Zeus’s most fre-       over them like a tsunami. The air shimmered with
quent Olympian companion.“This maze is just so …”       it. Out of the gloom loomed a terrifying sight: a
                                                        towering monstrous beast with ash-covered horns.
   “Maze-like?” Zeus finished her thought.“And no,      It fixed on them with beady eyes set above fiery
we’re not lost—I don’t get lost.” He rubbed his chin    orange nostrils linked by a silver chain.
as he inspected yet another fork in the tunnel.
                                                           “You see that big bull … thing standing there,
   “Sure, why would you get lost?” replied Demeter.     too, don’t you, Zeus?” Demeter asked flatly.
“I mean, mazes are, like, a hamster thing.”             “Or is this heat playing tricks on my
                                                        eyes?”
   “This isn’t a hamster thing, pal,” Zeus said.“I
don’t get lost because I’m Zeus, the king of the gods.     Zeus’s head was swimming. He
Always knowing where to go comes with the job.”         shook it and tried to focus on the
                                                        monster’s eyes, its nostrils, that
   “True,” Demeter nodded.“You always know where        chain. Then he saw its mouth,
to go. Most of the time. Sometimes …” She looked at     locked in a grimace of square teeth
the fork in the tunnel.“So … where do we go?”           shut tight.
   Zeus sniffed at one of the tunnels, then shrugged.      “I see it,” Zeus whispered.“Do you
“This-a-way.”                                           see what I see poking from its teeth?”
   The two Olympians had come across the entrance          “That’s not …” Demeter answered
to this underground maze earlier that night while       slowly.“That’s not fur, is it?”
exploring. They had nearly stumbled into a rectan-
gular pit, more than big enough to fit the hamster         “I think we should go,” Zeus said. He
and his companion. Zeus had paid little mind to this    turned and looked for the tunnel they
pit during past excursions; it had always been          had come from but saw dozens of open-
blocked by a metal grate. Tonight, the grate was        ings all around the cavern.“Blast it, which
gone—just one of the many strange changes               one’s the way out?” Zeus dared not look
happening in Greece lately.                             back at the horned beast in the center of
                                                        the cavern. He could practically feel the
   The deeper they delved into the maze, the hotter     monster bearing down on them.
it got. The normally spiky fur on Zeus’s head flopped
over his crown.
Will Zeus and Demeter find their way out of the sweat-inducing maze—before the “monster”
attacks? Find out in the book Zeus the Mighty: The Maze of the Menacing Minotaur.
                                                           ZeusTheMighty.com
26 NAT GEO KIDS • MAY 2020
WIN THE
    BOOK!
 TRY ONLINE
 APRIL 22-29
for a chance
   to win an
autographed
    copy of
The Maze of
the Menacing
  Minotaur.
 natgeokids
 .com/may
STUFF
                                                                   GAMES, LAUGHS, AND LOTS TO DO!
                                                                   Noun Town
                      »                                                                             10 0 l
                      PLAY
                                                                                                    10 0 I
                                This city is full of nouns,
                             or people, places, and things.                                         10 0 I
                         But 12 compound nouns—
                      nouns made up of two or more                                                 JO 0 I
                  words, or two words combined to
make one word—have been drawn exactly as                                                           oon
they’re named. Can you guess the compound nouns
illustrated in each of the numbered scenes? Here’s a                                               oo'
hint: The answer to number 1 is “sleeping bag.”
                                                                                                   0 0 01
                                               ANSWERS ON PAGE 35
                                                                                                   00 0
                                                                                                                                      coo 0 0
                                                                                                                                       Oou 00
                                                                                                                                       coo 0 0
                                                                                                                                       Oou oo
                                                                   7 ooo 0 0
                                                                                                                                       Oou aD
                                                                   8
                   5              6                                     9
   1                                     4
                                                                      10
     2                                                                               11
                3                                                     12                                                                        JOREN CULL
   ,r"'     '               ,,.,  ... .                                                                   PLAY MORE
   ,..._f.                                                                                                GAMES WITH
r           ).        '           ,.. ~~                                                                  THIS BOOK.
                                  ~
28 NAT GEO KIDS • MAY 2020
PAUL SOUDERS / GETTY IMAGES (1), IMAGE DIGITALLY COMPOSED; YAGIL HENKIN / ALAMY (2);
ROBERTHARDING / ALAMY (3); JONATHAN BLAIR / NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC IMAGE COLLECTION
(4); JONATHAN TOURTELLOT / NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC IMAGE COLLECTION (5), IMAGE DIGITALLY
COMPOSED; DANITA DELIMONT / GETTY IMAGES (6); PETER DAZELEY / GETTY IMAGES (7)
                                 4                                                    13        OF THE
                              Myway                                                          SIGNS TIMES
                           Orda
                       Highway
56
7                                                                                         2
                     PUSH                                                                             Seeing isn’t always believing. Two
                                                                                                   of these funny signs aren’t real. Can
MAY 2020 • NAT GEO 29KIDS                                                                       you figure out which two are fake?
                                                                                             ANSWERS ON PAGE 35
STRIKA EN TERTAINMENT                                                        •1
                                                                                        ..
                                2 34
                                  THAT 5t.OB8&RY
                                CH&W TOY IS 0 1-M
                                       £1AP t..UCK.
                             5                                                   .+ +. 6
                                THI?- Pt'-TS START   QUIT TICKt.rNG
                                St'-ARCHING, f'UT    Mt'- WITH TH1l&&·t.6AF
                                SOON ...             Ct.OV&RS! THIS ISN'T
                                                     H&t.PING!
 •.                                                    ...                       ,_
 ... ·.----                                         -,....
  -·•
                     :.._..
30 NAT GEO KIDS • MAY 2020
78
         "!!'                       -~--       •. 9
                                ,,, __ .._'t,
    : .~.                                      •
                               -~-~-
--·· ·-':!
               ."'·'"
 -.._
    ...,
    • ....
                                               • ~4 •
                                                       •10
                               CAN TH~ Pf;TS KE~P UP
                               THf;IR GOOD WCK? FIND OUT
                              !N THf; Nf;)(f tJNUASH#l!
               31MAY 2020 • NAT GEO KIDS
In the new book Explorer Academy: The Star Dunes,
                                            13-year-old Cruz Coronado breaks secret codes and
                                            unravels puzzles in order to fight dangerous villains and
                                            solve mysteries. Test your own skills by solving the puzzle
                                            on this page, then check out more about the book at
                                            ExplorerAcademy.com .                                                  TEXT BY TRACEY WEST
                                                                                                                   PUZZLE BY GARETH MOORE
WORD FIT:
ALOHA, HAWAII!
All the listed words describe things you can see or do in Cruz’s home state of Hawaii. Try
to fit them all in the grid by placing words horizontally or vertically, one letter per box.
                                                                                               ANSWERS ON PAGE 35
3 LETTERS  4 LETTERS  5 LETTERS  6 LETTERS  7 LETTERS  8 LETTERS                                                   9 LETTERS  11 LETTERS
LEI        BAYS       KAUAI      ATOLLS     BEACHES    HONOLULU                                                    KAHOOLAWE  NA PALI COAST
SUN        HULA       LANAI      NIIHAU     ISLANDS                                                                POLYNESIA
           LUAU       MAILI      WAILEA     KILAUEA
           MAUI       OCEAN                 MOLOKAI
           OAHU       SCUBA                 WAIKIKI
                                                                                                                                 j
                                                                                                                                ...•.
                                                                                                                   usaealHhsp,,ahoekwca,n,oibla,lyn,eioism1ta,o2:Tun,nthl,nlheaaae,tnennpttvdge,souwrtwsah.gieenelsits
           SOLVE MORE PUZZLES!                                                                                   CHECK
           ExplorerAcademy.com                                                                                     OUT
                                                                                                                   THE
32 NAT GEO KIDS • MAY 2020
                                                                                                                 BOOK!
                                            RYAN ETTER / IKON IMAGES / GETTY IMAGES (HEADER BACKGROUND); ELLENSMILE / DREAMSTIME
                                                      (PALM TREES); VIDEOWOKART / SHUTTERSTOCK (YELLOW FLOWER); BRAND X (RED FLOWER)
FUNNY IT’S A JUNGLE OUT THERE!                                                                                                      PLAY MORE FUNNY FILL-IN!
                                                                      Ask a friend to give you words to fill in the                      natgeokids.com/ffi
                                                                      blanks in this story without showing it to
FILL IN him or her.Then read out loud for a laugh.
                                                                                                                   BY BECKY BAINES
My friends and I     past-tense verb         a machine that can    verb               stuff. But before we could show
it off, we had to       verb             it. I put a(n)   noun              on a table and  past-tense verb
a button. Then there was a(n)            adjective        blast. Suddenly I saw green strips towering above me. It was
grass—we           adverb ending in -ly           past-tense verb  ourselves! We heard a noise. I turned and saw a(n)
             noun       with eight eyes. My friend quickly scaled a nearby  something in nature                                     , while the
rest of us tied our  article of clothing, plural  together to make a rope. Our friend pulled us to safety, with the creature
                            toward us. A(n)         flying animal  picked us up from there, dropping us on top of our
verb ending in -ing
machine. We gathered together and        past-tense verb  on the button. I opened my  body part, plural                             . I was
             adjective         enough to see into my house! Our big adventure had come to a close.
                                                                                            PLAY MORE FUNNY FILL-IN!
                                                                                                natgeokids.com/ffi
JIM PAILLOT                                                                 33MAY 2020 • NAT GEO KIDS
STUMP
YOURPARENTS
If your parents can’t answer these questions,             6 Which statement is false?
maybe they should go to school instead of you!
                                                                Two-toed sloths _________________ .
                                      ANSWERS ON PAGE 35        A. are often covered in algae
                                                                B. climb upside down
1 Which of these wacky festivals is real?                       C. shiver
                                                                D. eat leaves
        A. the Lumberjack World Championships
           in Hayward, Wisconsin                          7 A group of grasshoppers
        B. the Okie Noodling Tournament in                      is called a _______ .
           Pauls Valley, Oklahoma                               A. cloud C. bloat
                                                                B. pod D. scrum
        C. the Rainbow Gathering in Santa Fe,
           New Mexico                                     8 A __________________ is the
        D. all of the above
            2 _________________ is
                         the planet farthest
                         from the sun.
                         A. Earth C. Mercury
                         B. Neptune D. Saturn
                                                          world’s largest rodent.
                                                          A. chipmunk        C. capybara
3  The first compasses were                               B. New York City rat D. marmot
   made in ____________ .
   A. China     C. Peru                                   9 Alfred Nobel, the man for
   B. Portugal  D. Zimbabwe                                     whom the Nobel Peace Prize is
                                                                named, invented ___________ .
4 A person who studies trees is                                 A. lightbulbs C. hot chocolate
                                                                B. sleeping bags D. dynamite
       called a(n)____________________ .
       A. dendrologist C. treeologist
       B. etymologist D. geologist
                                                          10 Match each country to the
                                                          currency it uses.
5 Before graduating high school, the
                                                          A. Canada          1. metical
      average U.S. kid will have eaten _______
      peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches.                 B. England         2. euro
      A. 800
      B. 1,500                                            C. Poland          3. dollar
      C. 2,600
      D. 3,500                                            D. Spain           4. pound
                                                          E. Mozambique      5. zloty
                                                          “BEE” A GEO-GENIUS!
                                                          On May 20, watch kid geography whizzes com-
                                                          pete in the National Geographic GeoBee, then
                                                          see super science come to life in the National
                                                          Geographic GeoChallenge.
                                                          Learn more! natgeoed.org/experiences
34 NAT GEO KIDS • MAY 2019   KEVIN KELLEY / GETTY IMAGES (SATURN); KISAN / SHUTTERSTOCK (COMPASS); CORNELIA DOERR / GETTY IMAGES (TREE); © MARKSTOUT / DREAMSTIME
                             (SANDWICH); PLTPHOTOGRAPHY / DREAMSTIME (SLOTH); CHARLES KREBS / GETTY IMAGES (GRASSHOPPERS); RYAN MCVAY / GETTY IMAGES (CURRENCY)
TBAACKLK                                        1. Fill in the thought balloon.
     eYleOWptUhhhitanhankitntindksgoet?ahilsis  2. Cut out the entire picture(or make a photocopy of it).
                                                3. Mail it along with your name, address, phone number, and date of birth
                                                to Nat Geo Kids, Back Talk, P.O. Box 96000, Washington, DC 20090-6000.
                                                Selection for publication in a future issue will be at the discretion of Nat Geo Kids.
FROM THE AUGUST 2019                                                                                                                  “Stump Your Parents”
ISSUE
                                                                                                                                 (page 34): 1. D, 2. B, 3. A, 4. A, 5. B,
                                                                                                                                   6. C, 7. A, 8. C, 9. D, 10. A, 3; B, 4;
                                                                                                                                                          C, 5; D, 2; E, 1.
Mom warned me                                                                                         I’m not lion,                 POL YNE S I A   S
my face would get                                                                                     I’m feline tired.
stuck like this!                                                                                                                 LI                 E
                                                                                                      Claire C., 11
Lucy T., 8                                                                                            Alexandria, Virginia       N I I HAU T L UAU
Tequesta, Florida
                                                                                                      It must’ve been            CH S O A
Is there something                                                                                    something I ate!
in my teeth?                                                                                                                     HU LA A A T M
                                                                                                      Carson E., 9
Jacob D., 16                                                                                          Sykesville, Maryland          OC E AN     EO
Mesa, Arizona
                                                                                                      I have morning             S CUBA E C I
Hair ball!                                                                                            breath.
                                                                                                                                 A         EW I            Y
Khloe A., 11                                                                                          Stella K., 9
Snohomish, Washington                                                                                 Western Springs, Illinois  S UN  U A LE I            A
                                                                                                                                 WA I L E A A D A          B
                                                                                                                                 LOP KN L
                                                                                                                                    OAOA           KAUA I
                                                                                                                                    K HONO L U L U
                                                                                                                                    OS       A
                                                                                                                                 MA I L I    WA I K I K I
Cats rule.                                                                                            That’s right,                         Answers
Dogs drool.                                                                                           I’m a mane-iac!
                                                                                                                                         “Noun Town” (page 28):
Xavier D., 11                                                                                         Caleb R., 9
Oak Hill, Virginia                                                                                    Oakland, California                  The 12 compound nouns are:
                                                                                                                                            1. sleeping bag, 2. eggplant,
                                                                                                                                       3. catfish, 4. bellhop, 5. ladybug,
                                                                                                                                 6. housework, 7. butterfly, 8. limelight,
                                                                                                                                            9. arrowhead, 10. full moon,
                                                                                                                                           11. sunflower, 12. coffee table.
                                                                                                                                           “Signs of the Times”
                                                                                                                                      (page 29): Signs 1 and 5 are fake.
                                                                                                                                 “Explorer Academy” (page 32):
VICKI JAURON, BABYLON AND BEYOND PHOTOGRAPHY / GETTY IMAGES (SEAL); IAN DYBALL / SHUTTERSTOCK (LION)                             35MAY 2020 • NAT GEO KIDS
© 2020 Pepperidge Farm, Incorporated.
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