Who can eat without any teeth or jaws?
Many animals have no teeth. But almost all
animals have some kind of jaws to push the food in. But the anteater has
neither teeth nor jaws. This strange-looking creature from South America has a
tube-shaped snout that contains neither teeth nor jaws! Then how and what does
he eat?
The anteater eats with its tongue. Its tongue is very long
and very sticky. The anteater eats ants. It searches for an ant hill, rips it
open with its paws, and licks up dozens of ants with a single swipe of its
tongue. Then it sucks its tongue back into the tube-like snout and swallows the
ants in one gulp.
Anteaters are strong and have sharp claws. A sharp spine
behind those claws can punch a hole in another animal’s flesh. And the giant
anteater can be as big as a bear!
Can chimpanzees speak?
The Chimpanzee is considered to be the most intelligent of
all animals besides man. Scientists have done many experiments on them and
shown that trained chimps can be taught to use a form of silent language to ‘talk’
to their trainers.
First, they learn symbols for some simple words. These
symbols are made on tokens. For example, a chimp can learn that by handing a
token marked with a circle he would receive a banana. Similarly, many other
simple words can be represented with the help of marks on tokens. Before
long, a chimp can construct his own “sentences” by placing a group of tokens in
a certain order. These sentences too are simple saying things like “I want a
banana now”
Some chimps were even taught to operate a vending machine.
They could place certain tokens in slots which would produce different fruits
accordingly. The chimps soon began to hoard their tokens and even fought among themselves
over the tokens!
How many arms does a
starfish have?
Although most starfish have five arms, some kinds have many,
more sometimes as many as fifty!
Fishermen who search for oysters don’t like starfish because the
favourite meal of a starfish is a juicy oyster. These fishermen tried to wipe
out all starfish to save the oysters for themselves by catching the starfish and
then cutting them into pieces and throwing them back into the water. What they did
not know was that every piece of a starfish can grow into a new starfish!
How do fish breathe?
Fish do not have to come out into the air to breathe; they
can get their oxygen directly from the water. They have organs called gills
that take oxygen from the water.
Sometimes when small ponds start drying up, too many fish are
crowded into a small amount of water. When they use up all the oxygen in the
water they die or drown. Fish can also drown if their gills are damaged in a
collision with an underwater plant or in a fight with other sea creatures.
Can all birds fly?
No. There are many birds, though not too common, which cannot
fly. The emu and the cassowary, two large birds of Australia, the rhea of South
America, and a small bird called kiwi from New Zealand cannot fly. Two better-known
kinds the ostrich and the penguin also don’t fly.
These flightless or non-flying birds were not always like
this. They also descended from flying ancestors. But throughout
thousands of years, these grew larger and their legs became stronger to support
their weight. Their wings grew smaller and weaker as they used their legs more
than their wings. These flightless birds still have wings but they are not
useful for flying. For example, a penguin uses its wings to paddle its way
through the water.
Ostrichs have weak wings but very strong legs. It is the fastest-running bird on earth and can run at speeds up to 50 miles per hour.
Reviewed by knowledge people creators
on
June 18, 2021
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