Cowardly, disgusting, devious, thieving, and ugly. Those are some of the adjectives used to describe this stocky predator. As much as people love the lion, they hate the spotted hyena. The hyena may not be a picture of elegance and grace, but give this predator its props – it’s the real king of beasts on the African plains. Like the lion, the hyena uses the power of the pack, backed up by something the lion lacks - the strongest jaws of any of the large predators. There is no part of a carcass a hyena won’t eat: flesh, fat, hair, skin, horns, hooves and of course crunchy, jaw-breaking bone.

If all this doesn’t impress you, the hyena’s gross out factor just might.  Hyenas can eat and eat and eat...consuming more than half their body weight in a single meal. Then if there is anything they eat that doesn’t get digested, they just throw it up. No big deal.

And that laugh. Hyenas make a cackling sound that resembles a laugh. This tells the wild world that they’re excited and probably had a successful hunt. They also communicate with whoops, hollers and yells. If that seems similar to you and your friends getting together, let’s hope the other thing hyenas do is nothing similar at all. Hyenas express their excitement by sticking a small pouch out of their butt. And the pouch holds a thick, creamy liquid that STINKS!

Hyenas just want to be understood, and they let you know what's happening from both ends.

Hyenas: Very communicative. Very powerful. Very cool.

Do you like anchovies? These birds sure do! Blue-footed boobies live around the western coastal waters of Central and South America, including the Galapagos Islands. Their favorite food is fish, fish, and more fish, including anchovies.  Yum!

These birds — who weigh about 3 pounds and have a 5-foot wingspan — are extremely skilled divers. When ready to dive bomb into the sea, they fold their wings back along their sides in order to create a supreme streamlined body shape, and fearlessly plunge into the water for their fishy meal. They can do this from as high up as 80 feet! (That’s about as high as four 2-story houses piled on top of each other!) And they have no problem diving down for fish even from a standstill while already in the water.

Boobies use their blue feet to help propel them through the water, but also the blue color attracts other boobies...kind of like a person having a slick hairdo. Like our friend Boo, blue-footed boobies love to dance. The male and female dance to show off to each other and hopefully get each other interested in flirting even more.

How did blue-footed boobies get their silly name? Here is one theory: The early European settlers who saw them for the first time thought that the birds looked awkward on land. (Why of course...they are built for flying and swimming!) So they used the Spanish word for stupid when referring to them – which is “bobo.”

CLICK on Boo to watch him dance >

How do you think it feels spending just about all of your life hanging upside down? If you’re a sloth, it’s great. Sloths live in rain forests of Latin America, and are built for hanging upside down in the trees. Sloths do just about everything upside down — sleep, eat, travel, and the females even give birth upside down. Their sharp, curved claws grip so tightly that they can hold on for 20 hours at a time.

Sloths are nocturnal, which means they are active at night and sleep during the day. Usually, they only come down to the ground once a week to go to the bathroom at the base of their tree. It’s safer for them to stay up in the trees because their long claws make it awkward and difficult for them to walk on the ground. However they are very good swimmers and when threatened can escape by plunging into the water.

Sloths are the slowest mammals in the world. How slow are they? Well, they move so slowly that algae has time to grow on their fur! In turn, that algae helps them hide from predators — such as the harpy eagle — because it’s a good camouflage, blending in with the surrounding moss and green leaves.

A sloth’s main diet is fruit, leaves and berries. They don’t need to drink water, because they get the water they need from these foods.

There are many, many different kinds of monkeys...more than 200 species. Monkeys that live in Asia and Africa are called old world monkeys. These are baboons, macaques, mandrills, colobus monkeys and proboscis monkeys — just to name a few. Some live in the trees and others are perfectly comfortable hanging out on the ground.

The monkeys that live in South and Central America are called new world monkeys. Some of these are howler monkeys, spider monkeys, capuchin monkeys and saki monkeys. These monkeys are strictly arboreal. That means they live only up in trees.

Monkeys are good at communicating to each other not just through their voice, but also through their posture and facial expressions. Like our Monkey-Says Monkey, they’re very social and like to be close to their family and friends. You may often see them grooming each other, which not only removes bugs and yucky stuff from their fur, but it is a way in which they form close bonds.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. So instead of blabbing on about monkeys, take a look at these photos of some of our Monkey’s friends from around the world. See if you can guess which ones are old world monkeys and which are new world monkeys.

Snow monkeys, also called Japanese macaque, (muh-KAK) in Japan, relaxing in a hot springs.

Black and white colobus monkey

Proboscis monkey in tree in Borneo.

Older Hamadryas baboon whose hair
has turned grey

Squirrel monkey eating piece of fruit

Hamadryas baboon family grooming each other

Baby long-tailed macaque in Indonesia

Capuchin monkey yawning in Costa Rican rainforest.

Spider monkey in tree Nicaragua

Monkey-Says, “Pss-sst....what’s the difference between monkeys and apes? Most monkeys have tails and apes don’t. So chimps, gorillas, and orangutans are apes, not monkeys.”