Wikijunior:Big Cats/Glossary

A glossary of terms used in this book:
 * Canine teeth: Sometimes called fangs, they are teeth used as weapons and to grasp and hold prey.
 * Captivity: When animals are kept by humans.
 * Carnivore: An animal that eats meat.
 * Carrion: The flesh of a dead animal, which is eaten by carnivores or scavengers.
 * Classification: The way scientists give animals names that everyone around the world will understand, in a way that reflects our scientific understanding of how closely different animals are related to one another.
 * Conservation: Ways of reducing the amount of natural resources used, including reusing and recycling.
 * Diurnal: Active during the day and asleep at night.
 * Domestication: Taking animals from their natural habitat into the human habitat, then changing them in ways that make them more suitable to living with humans.
 * Endangered: Animals that are in danger of becoming extinct.
 * Extinction: When all animals of a kind are gone, that kind of animal is extinct. They can never come back.
 * Family: A medium sized group used in classification, it is made up of very closely related animals.
 * Fertile: Able to have offspring.
 * Flank: The side part of an animal's body.
 * Habitat: An area able to support a type of animal.
 * Herbivore: An animal that eats plants such as leaves and berries.
 * Hybrid: The offspring of two animals of different but similar kinds, such as a lion and a tiger.
 * Hybridization: When two animals of different kinds have offspring together.
 * Instinct: An animal's inherited knowledge; knowledge that did not have to be learned.
 * Jungle: A large forest in warm countries with many different kinds of animals and plants. Also called a rainforest.
 * Life span: How long an animal usually lives.
 * Litter: A group of baby mammals with the same parents.
 * Mammal: A warm-blooded animal that has hair on its skin and gives its young milk to drink.
 * Mane: The furry crown around a male Lion's head.
 * Muzzle: The part of an animal's face that includes the nose and jaws.
 * National Park: Land that is kept in a natural state for a variety of reasons, all of them important.
 * Nature preserve: Land that is kept in a natural state for conservation reasons where the welfare of plants and animals is more important than any other uses.
 * New World: North, Central and South America.
 * Nocturnal: Active at night and asleep during the day.
 * Offspring: The children of an animal.
 * Old World: Europe, Asia, Australia and Africa.
 * Order: A very large group used in classification, it contains a number of closely related families.
 * Poaching: Illegally killing an animal.
 * Prairie: A large, flat plain with a lot of grass and almost no trees, such as the Great Plains of North America.
 * Predator: An animal that hunts other animals and eats them.
 * Prey: An animal hunted by another animal for food.
 * Rainforest: A large forest that stays warm and wet year round with many different kinds of animals and plants. Also called a jungle.
 * Rosette: A mark in an animal's fur where a number of closely placed spots form an unbroken circle.
 * Retract (claw): The hiding of claws inside a paw.
 * Savannah: A large, flat plain with a lot of grass and scattered groups of trees, such as in East Central Africa.
 * Scavenge: To look for meat for food that was killed by a different animal.
 * Scientific name: The name given to a species by scientists when they classify it.
 * Siblings: All the offspring from one litter, or sometimes offspring with the same parents from two different litters.
 * Species: A group of animals that under normal conditions can have offspring together.
 * Steppes: A large, flat plain with a lot of grass and almost no trees.
 * Sterile: Not able to have children.
 * Subtropical: An area that never gets very cold in the winter, but which has different seasons.
 * Tropical: An area that never gets cold and does not have different seasons. Tropical areas are found close to the equator, and on a world map the area between the Tropic of Capricorn and Tropic of Cancer is considered the tropics.
 * Wildlife refuge: Land that is used to protect of wild animals. Sometimes parts of a wildlife refuge are not kept in a natural state to give certain species of animals a little extra help.  Planting rice in a water bird area is one example.
 * Zoo: A type of living museum where animals are kept for people to learn about them and have fun.

Wikijunior Großkatzen/ Glossar