Category: Plants & Animals

Although it is difficult to believe, there are fish living in the desert. Several important expeditions have gone to the Sahara to uncover the mystery of these fish which are sometimes found scores of metres down. The most famous is the lungfish which in the larger African rivers. When these rivers overflow their waters can…

There is a Bedouin saying which states that a date palm must have ‘its feet in water and its head in the sun’. for this reason the date palm is a typical tree of the desert oases. Its roots dig very deeply into the soil until they find an underground store of water which gives…

To establish how effective a drug is it must be tested carefully and accurately and its effect on a living organism meticulously studied and noted. This is the task 0- pharmacology, a science -which has made tremendous advances in less than a century. The work of pharmacologists is often related to biochemistry, since they study…

During the mating season penguins gather together by the tens of thousands along the coasts of Antarctica. The female penguins lay one or two eggs which they place in a hollow in the ground. They take turns with the male penguin to sit on the eggs, clutching them tightly between their legs and their downy…

A large beehive can contain up to 80,000 bees but there is never any danger that such a vast number of insects will lead to confusion or chaos. There is only one queen in a hive and her sole task is to keep on lying eggs. There are several hundred male bees, known as drones,…

Earthworms cannot stand dry conditions in the soil: their bodies must always be in contact with damp earth and even a few minutes’ exposure to the sunlight makes them dry up and die. Earthworms spend most of their lives digging tunnels in the soil. It is quite surprising how they can burrow their way into…

It seems impossible that tortoises that move in such a slow, cumbersome manner should have relatives that swim fast through the ocean. Turtles, which very closely resemble tortoises, are sometimes as quick as fish in moving through the ocean. Turtles, which very closely resemble tortoises, are sometimes as quick as fish in moving through the…

Many varieties of seals live beyond the Arctic Circle. All these animals have short necks and no external ears. It is this latter feature that distinguishes true seals from sealions which have prominent ears. Seals range in size from the little fresh-water seal of Siberia, about one metre long, to the enormous sea elephant of…

In zoos the popular names of the animals on display are written on a label in front of their cages. The label also carries the animal’s scientific name in Latin. For example, on a lion’s cage, the Latin name is Panthera leo; on a tiger’s cage of a leopard the name is Panthera pardus. Latin…

Dates are used in many ways. Those with a soft, pulpy flesh provide a syrup known as date honey which can be made into a jam. Hard-fleshed dates can be preserved in sugar or made into flour. The juice of dates can be fermented and turned into an alcoholic drink called arrack. The leaves of…