Which animals do you think of at Halloween?
There are certain animals that are associated with Halloween for their spooky appeal.
A common theme these animals share is they are NOCTURNAL, meaning they are active during
the night.
They are also PREDATORS, which means they hunt for food.
Here are eight animals that creep right in with Halloween.
1.
Owls This watchful bird with giant eyes has the
perfect mysterious quality for Halloween.
Some cultures that celebrate Halloween believe witches can turn into owls to cause mischief!
And some people think the owls' hooting sounds like the laughing cackle of witches!
Whether owls are flying, cackling witches or not, they are very helpful in keeping the
rodent population under control.
At night, owls like to come out to hunt for small animals like mice.
Owls are great hunters because their flight is silent, they have excellent eyesight and
very sensitive, directional hearing.
They also have powerful talons (or claws) that are great for catching their prey.
2.
Rats Of course, rats are on this list of spooky
animals!
They are most active during the dawn and dusk.
Rats are known for sneaking through walls; their tiny scratching was believed to sound
like ghosts!
Spoooooooky!
Not only are they heard scurrying around houses, they can also fit through very small holes.
Some rats can fit through a hole the size of a quarter!
Rats also look spooky because of their big sharp teeth and long hairless tail.
Rats are avoided by most humans because they are known for carrying disease or having parasites
on them like fleas that can also carry disease.
But some people have rats as pets.
What do you think - would a rat make a good companion?
3.
Bats Bats are associated with vampires!
Vampires are evil mythological beings that roam the earth at night looking to suck the
blood of humans!
Bats are flying mammals that fly around at night looking for food too, but most bats
like to eat insects.
Some bats eat fruit and others do eat small animals.
Bats are pretty amazing creatures.
They are the only mammals that have true flight.
The largest bat is the giant golden-crowned flying fox bat.
These bats can have a wingspan of up to 1.7m.
Bats also have evolved to have amazing hearing.
They use ECHOLOCATION.
Bats emit high-pitched sounds that bounce off of objects and send echoes back to the
bats.
From these echoes, bats can determine the size of object and how far away they are from
the bat.
Pretty incredible, huh?
Bats are pretty cute up close and are pretty harmless.
If you look close in caves, trees and under bridges you might find them sleeping upside
down!
Some bats are solitary while others live in groups of hundreds to millions of bats!
I'm glad they're bats and not vampires!
4.
Cats Why are cats are associated with Halloween?!
How can this be?
Many of us have cats as sweet, cuddly pets all year long.
How can our little furry friends be spooky?
Cats' association with Halloween may date all the way back to the Ancient Egyptians.
Egyptians have always loved cats and even had a cat-headed goddess named Bastet.
This goddess and her temple cats were associated with nighttime.
Bastet would have a nightly battle with the Serpent of Darkness, the sun's enemy.
So every day, when the sun rose, it meant Bastet had won.
Go cats!
Cats sleep about 14 hours a day.
When not sleeping, they are fantastic hunters.
They have great hearing, a keen sense of smell and can see 6 times better in the dark than
humans can.
When they hunt, their back paws step in the same spots as their front to minimize their
noise.
Watch out!
(They're also very cute.)
5.
Spiders Spiders were believed to be evil companions
to witches; and in spooky places like graveyards, dense forests, caves and other dark places,
you're pretty much guaranteed to find a spider.
After all, there are about 70,000 species of spiders in the world.
They're everywhere!
Most spiders love to cast webs in dark places, but where they like to live depends on the
species.
Halloween folklore also deemed spiders magical for their web casting abilities.
There are six different types of webs.
Two that are associated most with Halloween are the orb-weaver web and the cobweb.
Orb-weaver webs are the most familiar looking.
They have spokes likes a wheel and a spiral design.
The other kind of web we see a lot in Halloween decorations is the cobweb.
Cobwebs are super sticky and messy.
They are often found in the corners of basements and other storage places.
Several different kinds of spiders make cobwebs, including the harmless, tiny brown "common
house spider" that likes to eat flies, mosquitoes and other pests.
That's not so bad.
But another cobweb maker is the venomous black widow.
Look out!
6.
Ravens Ravens are associated with witches and were
believed to be bad people or evil spirits reincarnated into these big black birds.
According to folklore, if someone spots a raven, it means something bad is about to
happen.
Uh oh.
Ravens are one of the smartest animals.
Ravens use tools and gesture like primates.
They have been seen pointing with their beaks to show other ravens what they're looking
at.
They will also hold up objects to get another birds' attention.
Ravens have been seen practicing empathy with each other, consoling a raven after it lost
a fight.
They also can recognize faces.
In fact, if they don't like a person, when they see them, they will begin making a fuss.
So don't upset a raven!
7.
Wolves In European folklore, a werewolf is a man
who turns into a wolf at night and hunts people, animals and corpses.
In some werewolf stories the man could turn into a wolf at will, in others he was cursed
to turn into a werewolf under a full moon.
Werewolves are...probably not real.
But Wolves are!
Wolves are the biggest member of the Canidae family which includes dogs, coyotes, dingoes
and foxes.
Wolves travel in packs.
A pack can have two to three animals or ten times as many.
There is often an alpha male and female pair to lead the pack.
Wolves use facial expressions to communicate with each other and maintain pack unity.
We understand more about wolves now, but still find their howling to be pretty spooky.
8.
Toads Like bats, cats, rats, ravens and spiders,
toads are associated with witches.
Witches sure do have a lot of animal friends!
Folklore said that when hunting for a witch, toads would be nearby.
This animals' warts are also to be blamed for being spooky.
In the Middle Ages, people with warts were believed to have touched a toad.
Yuck!
Toads' warts are one way to tell a toad apart from a frog.
Toads have drier, leathery, wart-covered skin and shorter legs.
They can also live farther away from water.
Like these other Halloween animals, toads are nocturnal.
They burrow beneath the earth during the day, coming out at night to catch insects.
Those are eight animals associated with Halloween.
Which animal did you find the spookiest?
Which one the cutest?
Did we leave out any spooky animals?
Let us know in the comment section below, we want to know what you think!
Now it's time to watch another video all about animals!
If you want more creepy critters, check out our video all about Bugs!
Or if you'd rather see something cuddly and safe, how about some bunnies.
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