CONTENTS ASIA 4 EUROPE 8 AFRICA 12 OCEANIA 18 NORTH AMERICA 22 SOUTH AMERICA 26 GLOSSARY 32 INDEX 32
ASIA MASSIVE MOLARS Giant panda Although giant pandas have a largely vegetarian diet and eat mostly bamboo they are actually classified scientifically as carnivores which are meat-eating animals As a result of their bamboo-chomping lifestyle pandas have evolved the biggest molar teeth of any carnivore These along with their strong jaws allow them to crush hard bamboo stems as big as 1.5 inches 4 cm wide FAST FACT Because bamboo has such low nutrient levels adult pandas need to each eat about 44 pounds 20 kg a day That can take them 16 hours to eat 4
LARGEST AMPHIBIAN EXTINCTION THREAT CHINESE GIANT SALAMANDER This huge relative of frogs and toads can grow to be almost 6 feet 1.8 m long But sadly there are very few left now and they are rarely seen at that size The Chinese giant salamander is critically endangered due partly to hunting for use in traditional Chinese medicine 1 foot 30 cm long GIANT HUNTSMAN SPIDER The famous goliath birdeater might be the largest spider when measured by weight but the giant huntsman spider takes the prize when it comes to sheer size This spider was only discovered in 2001 in a cave in the southeastern Asian country of Laos which lies north of Thailand If this slender spider species sat on a dinner plate its legs would stretch right across No other spider has such a leg span up to 1 foot 30 cm MOST EYES GIANT CLAM This creature is extreme in a number of ways but perhaps most bizarre are its eyes it’s thought to have more than any other animal The uppermost exposed part of a giant clam’s flesh is covered with them and a fully grown specimen can literally have hundreds of eyes And while these might not be the sort of complex BUMBLEBEE BAT This tiny furred creature weighs less than some insects In fact this species is about as small as a mammal can be as being warm blooded at this tiny size requires eyes humans have they can detect movement as well as light and dark On top of all that it's also the largest bivalve mollusk on the planet a huge amount of energy These bats weigh less than an ounce with a head and body length of only about 1 inch 25 mm SMALL SHREWS FACT BOX The bumblebee bat is the smallest mammal by absolute size but the Etruscan shrew happens to weigh a tiny bit less 5 LARGEST SPIDER SMALLEST MAMMAL
