Jeff Walters, age 7, of High Point, N.C., for his question:

WHAT IS THE FASTEST ANIMAL IN THE WORLD?

Fastest animal in the world is a bird with a very appropriate name: the spinetailed swift. The bird with the Latin name of Chaetura caudacuta has been reliably measured at traveling 106.25 miles per hour. The recording was made in 1942 in Russia. Naturalists have estimated that the bird may well fly between 150 and 200 miles per hour. Unfortunately, however, it is difficult to accurately clock the swift when it is in flight.

This fastest moving living creature has a blood temperature of 112.5 degrees Fahrenheit. Speeds even higher than the free fall 185 miles per hour have been given by some naturalists to the peregrine falcons. Scientific experiments, however, made with miniature air speedometers fitted to falcons, have brought a maximum diving speed of only 82 miles per hour.