Have you ever looked across the breakfast table at the stubble on your dad's unshaven face and thought, "Whiskers are weird"? Well, whiskers are unusual, but not uncommon. In fact, from walruses to wombats, almost all mammals have whiskers. For many animals, these special hairs serve important and newly recognized purposes. Visit the new Science News for Kids website and read the full story: By a whisker

Even behind thick glass at the zoo, rattlesnakes look dangerous. Then you walk into the sunshine and visit the outdoor exhibits. You smile as the Komodo dragon — at up to 300 pounds (136 kilograms), the world's heaviest lizard — plays tug-of-war with its keeper. In the bird exhibit, hooded pitohuis (pit-eww-ease) from Papua New Guinea flutter to the top perch in a colorful flurry of orange and black feathers. Their song fills the air. A duck-billed platypus, a strange Australian mammal, swims in quick circles in its murky pond while hunting for crustaceans. You've forgotten about the venom...

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