TRANSPENNINE EXPRESS (FELIX, MAIN); ZCHD / FIRST TRANSPENNINE EXPRESS (SUPPLIEDBY WENN) / NEWSCOM (FELIX AT TRACKS); RICHARD TADMAN / ALAMY (TRAIN); KARINEAIGNER / NG STAFF (SUNSHINE, BOTH); PAWAN KUMAR / © REUTERS (FROG AND MOUSE)
FROG RESCUES MOUSE
Lucknow, India
What’s a mouse to do when it’s floating up a street
without a paddle? Hitch a ride on a frog!
Swept up in a flooded street during the summer
monsoon season—when heavy rainfalls can cause
flooding—the mouse might have been a goner had
this frog not swum by. “Frogs are at home in the
water, so they easily weather these storms,” biology
professor Jim Ryan says. “Mice aren’t strong swim-
mers. They’ll use anything as a life preserver or raft.”
Is the frog a hero? It’s doubtful. “The mouse proba-
bly grabbed onto the first thing that went by,” Ryan
says. “It was probably just a very tolerant frog—and
a very lucky mouse!” —Ruth A. MusgraveWilliamsport, Pennsylvania
Who needs a guard dog when you have Sunshine the macaw? He helped
catch a thief!
Sunshine’s owner, J.W. Erb, had returned home to a ransacked apart-
ment. “I wasn’t worried about my stuff,” Erb says. “But when I saw feathers
everywhere, total fear set in.” Luckily Erb found an unharmed Sunshine
hiding in the bedroom. “The thief probably thought he’d steal Sunshine
too, but I know my bird,” Erb says. “He wasn’t going for it, and I knew the
guy lost the fight.”
Erb told police to be on the lookout for someone who looked as if he had
been attacked by a wild animal. “After the police arrested the suspect,
they told me he looked as if he’d been in a fight with barbed wire,” Erb says.
That’s all police needed to connect the thief with Sunshine—and the
break-in. Seems this macaw turned a cat burgl
a jailbird. —Ruth A. MuBIRD NABS BURGLAR!
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC KIDS 11
SUNSHINE,
SHOWN AT
FAR RIGHT
WITH OWNER
J.W. ERBFrogs
were the
first land
animals with
vocal cords.ar into
usgrave i hope he
doesn’t
think i’m
a fly.there’s
a new
sheriff in
town.