11 items in this section. Displaying page 1 of 2
The Fish Which Changes From Female to Male
There is a fish called the blackspot angelfish, which can change from female to male. No, it cannot do it by simply wishing to become male. The change happens for a specific reason. The angel fish live in groups. And each group has one male fish, which is blue in colour, and four female fish, which are yellow in colour. The male angelfish is the strongest and largest member of the group. He is the one who protects and looks after the females and acts like their ‘security guard’....
Why does Cutting Onions Make us Cry?
If you cut an onion, you begin crying. Have you ever wondered why this happens — why onions make tears run down your face? Well, onions contain a oil, which has lots of sulphur in it. When you cut the onion, this oil is released. It evaporates very fast. When the oil gases reach your eyes, it causes irritation and sends signals to your tear gland to produce tears. So that the tears can wash away the irritant from your eyes....
Can a Fish be an Amphibian?
The fish actually looks like it was cursed by a fairy to turn into a frog and the curse stopped working half way! It is called the mudskipper. Because it lives in swamps and estuaries with mud banks. An estuary is a place where a river meets the sea. It can crawl and jump over land too. It actually has a rollicking time jumping over mud! No wonder it is called the mudskipper! The mudskippers are probably the most land adapted of fish, and are able to spend days moving about out of water....
Different Colours of Honey
Honey comes in a variety of colours, flavours and fragrances. While some are amber, others are red, brown or yellow. Have you ever wondered why the honey made by the same bees have different colours? Simple. It is made from different kinds of nectar, or the juice that the bees suck out of flowers. Different flowers have different kinds of nectar. And, all of them have different colours. While the nectar collected from the clover plant is usually light in colour, the amber colour comes from poplar, eucalyptus, marigold and magnolia plants....
Birds Which Eat Their Feathers
We all know that birds use their feathers to line their nests. But have you ever heard of a bird eating its own feathers? It is a bird which lives in water and is called the great crested grebe. It eats its own feathers and feeds them to her young ones too. And, it always prefers soft feathers, which it sheds throughout the year. Scientists believe that its feather-eating habit is linked to the process with which it throws waste....
Insect which Swims on Its Back
Swimmers, who are in a lazy mood and want to relax, prefer floating on their backs. Did you know that there is a bug that swims on its back? It is called the Backswimmer. It is about 0.13 to 0.63 inches long. Unlike many other insects who use their wings for this purpose, the backswimmers make use of their hind legs to paddle on their backs. Some of them have hair on their legs which help them to swim....
Mother and Child in the Animal Kingdom
It is a familiar scene in real life and in movies. In a group of 100 excited lambs, an ewe, or female sheep, has no problems picking out her lamb. She does this through the sense of smell. More than one million animal species live on our planet and the females of the species recognise their young ones through smell, sound, sight or touch. Actually, most mammals recognise their young ones by smell. As soon as it gives birth, one of the first things a mare, ewe, doe or seal does is to smell the newborn....
The Spectacled Bear
Many of us wear glasses when we have problems with eyesight. But, have you ever heard of bears with glasses? No, not the bears who appear on the Cartoon Network on TV. Real bears. The spectacled bear [Illustration by Shridevi] There is a kind of bear which lives in the forests of South America. It is called the ‘spectacled bear,’ or the Tremarctos Ornatus. It has white coloured fur around its eyes, which makes it look like it is wearing glasses....
Does a Sloth Live its Entire Life Upside Down?
Imagine living your entire life upside down. Sounds impossible? Well, it is not impossible for a sloth. The sloth is a mammal which lives in South America. It spends most of its life on trees in an upside down position. Unbelievable, but true. Sloths eat, sleep, make babies and even give birth to their young ones in this position! But, don’t they fall off when they fall asleep, one might wonder. They don’t. A Sloth hanging upside down on the tree That’s because the sloth’s muscles do not relax like ours do when we are sleeping....
A Frog's Friendship
From ‘When the World was Young’, by Verrier Elwin. The book is a fascinating collection of folktales from the tribal peoples of India. Elwin was a pioneering anthropologist; he spent his entire life getting to know the ways of life of the tribal peoples. There was a time when the Frog had thick legs and he lived on land. He was so very different from the frogs that we see today, with their thin spindly legs and their watery homes....
- ❮ Previous
- Next ❯