HOW MUCH ELECTRICITY CAN YOU GET FROM AN ELECTRIC EEL? WHEN CAN MISTLETOE BE THE KISS OF DEATH? HOW MANY SHEEP DOES IT TAKE TO GET ENOUGH WOOL FOR A SUIT? WHAT DID BOOK WORMS EAT BEFORE THERE WERE BOOKS? The mysteries of the natural world are endless, but your trusty manservant, Jeeves, has the answers to hundreds of nature's most fascinating mysteries. Based upon questions received at the popular Ask Jeeves® website, Just Curious About Animals and Nature, Jeeves is a fun and freewheeling safari of discovery that can tame even the most savage intellectual curiosity. Packed with incredible facts on everything from the size of a giraffe's tongue (yow, two feet!) to just how fast a fly can fly (4.5mph) to whether dogs have belly buttons (yes, they do), this is a book certain to both amuse and amaze. With a little help from everybody's butler, you'll unlock the secret behind the firefly's glow, wonder at the language of hippos, and scratch your head when you learn the truth about poison ivy. Certain to help you develop the kind of brainpower that will impress your friends and frighten your enemies, Just Curious About Animals and Nature, Jeeves is perfect for fans of flora and fauna, or for anyone who wants to know the whats, whens, whys, and hows of nature. Erin Barrett is the author of a kids' trivia book from Klutz Press; she has written for magazines and newspapers, such as Icon and the San Jose Mercury News , and has contributed to several anthologies, including the Uncle John's Bathroom Reader series. She and Jack Mingo have also designed numerous electronic and online games. They live in Alameda, California, with their family. Jack Mingo is the author of fifteen books including How the Cadillac Got Its Fins , The Whole Pop Catalog , and The Couch Potato Handbook . He has written for countless publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Boston Phoenix, Reader's Digest, The Wall Street Journal , and the Los Angeles Times . Together with Erin Barrett, they are the cofounders of the popular Ask Jeeves series and authors of the series' first book, Just Curious, Jeeves . Chapter One: Hey, Hey We're the Monkeys The Family's Tree Are gorillas a type of ape, or are apes gorillas? Are monkeys and apes the same thing? Are humans considered apes? Are simians different from primates? Help, Jeeves, I'm so confused! You're not alone, my anthropoid friend. Let's lay it out with a minimum of screeching, howling, and chest-beating: Primates are human beings and all of the other animals that resemble us most closely. Primates have two main groups: anthropoids and prosimians. 1. Anthropoids include: Monkeys. New World monkeys live in South and Central America and include marmosets, tamarins, capuchins, howlers, spider monkeys, squirrel monkeys, woolly monkeys, and even woolly spider monkeys. Old World monkeys live in Asia and Africa and include baboons, colobus monkeys, guenons, langurs, and macaques. Apes. There are four major ape groupings -- chimpanzees, gibbons, gorillas, and orangutans. Apes have no tails and are smarter than monkeys. Apes walk in an upright position instead of on four feet like monkeys. Apes actually climb trees; monkeys take a leap into them. Humans. It's pretty much just custom, religious dogma, and species egotism that keep people from proudly classifying themselves as apes. Most scientists don't make that distinction. By the way, if you exclude the humans from the above group, the apes and monkeys you have left are known as simians. 2. Prosimians include a number of lesser-known animals like aye-ayes, galagos, lemurs, lorises, pottos, and tarsiers. Prosimii means "premonkey" -- in other words, they closely resemble the primitive primates that lived tens of millions of years ago before monkeys, apes, and humans began to evolve. Physically, prosimians have long, constantly wet noses like foxes instead of the flatter, drier noses of the anthropoids. Smell is more crucial to the prosimians, while anthropoids depend more on vision. Finally, the prosimians are not as strong or smart as the anthropoids. Not counting the lemurs, which are lucky enough to be isolated on the island of Madagascar, most of the prosimians have to directly compete for food with better-equipped monkeys and apes. In order to survive, prosimians became nocturnal hunters that scrounge for food while their larger, smarter cousins sleep. Not So Smart Smart What does Homo sapiens mean? "Wise human." That's already a fairly ironic joke, considering. However, it gets better: because anthropologists have identified other ancient subspecies of Homo sapiens (for example, Homo sapiens neandertalensis), modern humans are now known as Homo sapiens sapiens. That, of course, means "wise wise human," which seems to be really overstating the matter. What was the Neanderthal man named after? The first fossils of our long-dead relative were discovered