Category Animal World

               Insects are so common that we hardly spend a day without seeing them. Have you noticed the body of an insect?

               Insects have certain common features. Most insects have wings and antennae. The three parts of an insect’s body are the head, thorax and abdomen. The thorax is the middle region and the abdomen is the lower region.

               While insects have many similarities, they also come in all shapes, sizes and colours. Insects are extremely diverse in nature. In fact, there are almost one million different species of insects!

               One of the most common flying insects is the mosquito. Mosquitoes are considered to be the deadliest animal in the world as they have caused the deaths of millions of people.

               Insects are one of the largest groups of animals, with over 7,50,000 species that can be found on Earth. Insects generally have three pairs of walking legs. Some have wings, and some do not. They have a waterproof layer on the outside of their bodies, which helps them to move to environments where other organisms cannot survive.

               Some other common insects that can fly are the ladybug, bee, dragonfly and moth.

               The octopus does not have a backbone. In fact, the octopus has no bones at all. Its body structure allows the animal to hide in a little place and hunt under the sea.

               The octopus is a fascinating creature. It is found in shallow waters in most areas of the world. It has eight long limbs or tentacles, lined with suckers, protruding from a globe shaped head called the mantle. It uses two of its tentacles like legs to walk on the sea floor and to push off when it wants to swim. It also has the ability to grow back a tentacle if it loses one.

               The octopus has no skeleton at all, so it is able to squeeze through the smallest spaces. It has a sharp beak and toothed tongue which it uses to drill into the shells of its prey, or to force the shells open. Once it breaks open the shells, it injects a poison into its prey to paralyze it.

               The octopus is highly intelligent and also has the uncanny ability to change its colour, texture and body posture to blend in with its surroundings. This proves very useful both when it is hunting and when it wants to hide from its enemies. Another way it escapes is by releasing a cloud of purple-black ink so that the enemy can no longer see it.

               The mimic octopus can change its skin colour and texture to mimic not just one, but many other sea creatures! This fascinating creature was first discovered in 1998 off the coast of Indonesia.

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               It is unlikely that you are familiar with the name ‘mollusc’. However, you may be surprised when you learn that they are some common animals that we come across in our day-to-day life. A snail is a mollusc.

               Molluscs are a large and diverse group of invertebrates, belonging to the Gastropods species. They include a variety of familiar animals well-known for their decorative shells or as sea food. Tiny snails, clams, and squid, cuttle fish and octopuses are just some animals that belong to this group.

              Molluscs have soft bodies, and get their name from the Latin word ‘mollis’ which means ‘soft’. Some of these animals have very beautiful shells. Snails have twisted shells, while others have shells that are pearly or iridescent.

               Molluscs have a body part called a foot. Their foot is much like our foot, because it helps them move about.

               Molluscs also have a special feature called radula. The radula is a sharp tongue-like body part that is used to scrape food off hard surfaces and push it into their mouths.

              The giant calm is the largest mollusc. A giant calm can weigh upto 340 kilogrammes. They are beautifully coloured. Their mantle is usually a mixture of yellow, red, green, blue, pink and brown colour and each of them has a unique combination of colours. They have thick, bony zigzag shaped shells that cannot be closed completely.

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               Although the jellyfish has ‘fish’ in its name, it is not a fish. It is not made of jelly either.

               Unlike a fish, it is an animal without a backbone found in oceans and seas around the world. The name jellyfish derives from the jelly-like bodies of these animals.

               Jellyfish are found in oceans and seas all over the world, in the deepest as well as in shallow water. Some species thrive in salt water, others in fresh water. Jellyfish are possibly the oldest multi organ animal on this planet. Some scientists believe that they existed as far back as 700 million years ago.

               Jellyfish can be large or small, brightly coloured, transparent or translucent. They look like little umbrellas, with a gelatinous bell shaped body and trailing tentacles. Inside their bell-shaped body is an opening that is its mouth. They feed on fish, shrimp, crabs and tiny plants. They eat and discard waste from their mouths.

               As a jellyfish squirts water from its mouth, it is propelled forward. Jellyfish use their tentacles to sting. Most are harmless to humans but stings from some species, such as the box jellyfish, can be very painful and sometimes kill. They do not have any brains!

               The lion’s mane jellyfish, the largest jellyfish on the planet, has a mass of thin tentacles that resemble a lion’s mane. These jellyfish are found in the Arctic, North Atlantic and North Pacific Oceans.

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              Have you seen pictures of colourful coral beds under the sea? Some coral reefs are tourist attractions as visitors can go scuba diving there, and enjoy the biodiversity under water.

              Coral polyps are hard working little animals, no bigger than a match’s head, which together, build enormous coral reefs. They are invertebrates that live in colonies. Since they are small, and stay in one place, they are in danger of being attacked by larger animals.

              So, they construct hard chalky skeletons around their bodies. It is these skeletons that form the frame work of coral reefs. Corals are attached to the sea floor. Even through corals look like plants, they are animals. They stay in one place and live in groups.

              Coral reefs may look like rocks. They are made up of tiny little animals called polyps. As polyps die, they become hard and new polyps grow on top of them. This process continues until a colony is formed.

              As colonies grow over hundreds and thousands of years, they join with other colonies and become reefs. Some of the coral reefs on the planet today began growing over 50 million years ago. Corals live in tropical waters throughout the world.

              The largest coral reef is the Great Barrier Reef located off Queensland, Australia. The Great Barrier Reef stretches for 2600 kilometres.

              Coral reefs teem with life. Though they cover less than one percent of the ocean floor, they support 25 percent of all marine creatures. Coral reels are very important because they are home to some of the most strange and interesting creatures on this planet.

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               When we hear the word sponge, what comes to our mind first may be the sponge that we use to mop a wet surface or absorb water.

               The sea sponge is a type of invertebrate animal that lives in the world’s oceans. Sea sponges can be of many different colours, sizes, and shapes.

               They are the simplest multi cellular animals. They do not move around much but stay in one place. The surface of a sponge has many small pores or tiny holes.

               Water that is laden with food particles passes into its body through these pores. There are over 5,000 known species of sponges. They can be found attached to surfaces anywhere, from the shallow water near a beach to the depths of the ocean. Some types of sponges have been found to live over 300 years! Sponges can live in both warm and cold water as well as in both deep and shallow water. Sea sponges can only survive in saltwater, so if we put them in freshwater, they will quickly die. They are also very sensitive to air.

Picture credit: google