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Zayan’s world of animals 

15 Aug 2021

By Kusumanjalee Thilakarathna Today we have Zayan Gavyn Hameed, a 7-year-old animal enthusiast, on the Little Stars cover. Zayan is a passionate nature lover who has a special interest in prehistoric animals. He learned how to read on his own even before he turned two years old and by now he has read a countless number of books and he says most of these books were about nature and animals. Zayan enjoys working on video clips for his YouTube channel Zayan’s World and the channel has over 2000 subscribers. He is currently a student of Gateway International School, Kandy and he is in Grade 2. He is half Sri Lankan and half Filipino and is currently settled in Sri Lanka with his parents.  Would you like to introduce yourself, Zayan? My name is Zayan Hameed and I am going to be in Grade 2. I was in the UAE before I moved to Sri Lanka and I went to The New Filipino Private School in the UAE. My favourite subject in school is science because I like subjects like chemistry and biology. Those are some of my favourite sciences. My mom’s name is Gelai and my dad’s name is Zaharan. I don’t have any pets unfortunately but my neighbour has many animals in his backyard and I get to see them every day. It makes me happy.  You told us that you are very passionate about animals. Do you have any favourite animals?  I love all animals equally. I cannot pick just one.  We have seen you making lots of amazing animal crafts. Where do you learn to make them?  I mostly make dinosaurs. I think they can be considered animals too. I can’t remember how I got interested in making them. I must have seen it somewhere. It was my dad who used to make crafts a lot and I learnt to make them by copying what he did. Then I decided to make my own ones. I don’t make origami. But I will learn to make it one day because it sounds fun.   You are drawing animals too.  Yes. I draw a lot of animals and I like to draw prehistoric animals the most. Can you teach us a few facts about prehistoric animals? Sure. There are many interesting facts you can explore about prehistoric animals.  Pelorovis lived in Africa and had a pair of very longhorns. The Gomphotherium had a horn in its forehead, and it is said to have lived in Africa, North America and probably in Asia.  Amebelodon and Platybelodon were close relatives of the mammoth and looked pretty much like an elephant. Both of them have oddly shaped tusks. Deinotherium and Stegotetrabelodon both have downward-curving tusks attached to the lower jaw. Were these prehistoric animals similar to the animals we see in the movie series Ice Age?  Well, some of them are. I think they are Amebelodons or Platybelodons. You can see the mammoths, they are the most common prehistoric animals. I am not too sure if Sid is a giant ground sloth, he seems to be too small to be one of them. You also see glyptodonts, which is a heavily armoured mammal. Where did you learn all these facts? From books or by watching videos?  Both reading and videos on the internet. But mostly by reading books.  Sounds like you enjoy reading books very much.  Yes. I have a big collection of books and I have read almost every book I have. I started reading when I was as young as one year and 10 months old.  One of my favourite books is 8,000 Facts You Should Know. I got this book from the Philippines. Then there is the Horrible Histories book collection. They are not horrible to read. They are very very interesting and there are over 50 books. I have all of them. What is your ambition, Zayan? A lot of things. I want to become a biologist, a chemist, a botanist and a palaeontologist! Why a botanist?  Because I really like flowers, plants, and trees. Trees are plants too in a way but they are so big and have wood.  And why a palaeontologist?  Because I like dinosaurs. And maybe it would be fun to dig them up. And doing that will help the scientific community. And I will be able to dig up pretty interesting findings.  Also Zayan, do you think there may have been dinosaurs in Sri Lanka long ago? Well, I am pretty sure there have been dinosaurs in Sri Lanka a long time ago. But they haven’t been found in Sri Lanka because Sri Lanka is not very sandy and sandy spots are the best places to dig up. I'm sure there have been prehistoric animals here in Sri Lanka. So, when you become a palaeontologist, will you research these things? Well, yes of course. I would love to do that and find out things about prehistoric Sri Lanka.  We know that some animals are facing the threat of extinction. As humans what can we do to help conserve these animals?  Do not hunt animals unnecessarily. I know some people consume meat but some people can survive without meat. We should also stop cutting down trees. It’s not only harming animals, it’s harming the other trees and plants and also the humans. In the Amazon rainforest, there are millions of trees getting cut down and if it continues in about 30 years the Amazon rainforest will turn into an Amazon desert. Even children can help by joining environmental organisations and spreading the word not to cut the trees or not to hunt animals.  Is this why you started your YouTube channel Zayan’s World? Can you tell us more about the channel?  Yes. I don’t work on the videos often now due to the current circumstances. We started this channel back in 2017. Usually, my mother does the recording and my father does the directing and the script. It’s usually me who decides the theme of the video but sometimes my dad also puts in his ideas.    


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