Ravens can plan for tomorrow, mimic a human voice, and slide down snowbanks for no reason at all. The largest songbird on Earth is also one of the sharpest.

The tongue wraps around the skull, the feet grip like crampons, and one species hoards fifty thousand acorns. Woodpeckers are stranger than they look.

Some lizards drop their tails, some squirt blood from their eyes, and one swims the ocean. Over 7,000 species, and nearly all of them are up to something.

The smallest birds in the world fly backwards, forget the rules of resting, and nearly turn themselves off each night. A short, cheerful tour of how they pull it off.

Crocodiles have been around since the dinosaurs, can bite through bone, and yet carry their newborns to the water in their mouths. My Year 4 class refuses to believe the last bit.

A turtle cannot take off its shell, because the shell is basically its ribcage worn on the outside. That is only where the strangeness begins.

A frog never lifts a glass to its mouth, because it drinks through a patch of skin on its belly. That is only the beginning of the oddness.

Alligators come in only two kinds, one of them barely bigger than my kettle. They grow teeth on repeat and let the weather decide the sex of their young.

They look like lizards, act like nothing else, and can regrow a leg if they lose one. A gentle tour of the salamander, told the way my Year 4 class likes it.

Toads are frogs in a tweed jacket: dry, warty, and in no hurry. Here is what my Year 4 class never guesses about them.

I used to think chameleons changed colour to hide. Mostly they do it to talk, and the smallest ones have tongues quicker than a sports car.

A lizard with a third eye on its head, a chin flap for arguments, and a habit of dropping out of trees. Iguanas are stranger than they look.