Category Zoology

Sharks kill several people every year, probably because they mistake swimmers for seals, which are often their normal prey.

The small piranha can also be extremely dangerous. Piranhas live in rivers in South America. They are stocky disc-shaped fish, about 30 cm in length, with a blunt head. Piranhas feed by biting out a crescent-shaped piece from their prey with razor-sharp interlocking teeth. They can give a nasty bite, but are not really dangerous unless they attack in large numbers. Piranhas are supposed to be able to strip all the flesh from a pig or cow in a few minutes, but they are probably not dangerous to humans unless they are attracted by blood.

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The whale shark is the largest living fish, commonly reaching 9 m and sometimes as much as twice that length.

It is a sluggish fish that feeds on plankton and is found only in tropical seas. One of the largest freshwater fish is the arapaima of South America, which reaches a length of 2.4 m. The European catfish grows to a length of 4.5 m and weighs around 300 kg.

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                     Some birds live only in certain areas of the world, but the most successful birds are found almost everywhere.

                     Settlers introduced the starling and the sparrow into most countries. Like rats, these birds are so adaptable that they have increased in enormous numbers. The most common bird of all was the passenger pigeon, which lived in North America in such huge flocks that they darkened the skies for days during their migrations. These birds were hunted nearly to extinction during the 1800s, and the last one died in a zoo in 1914.

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                     Swifts and frigate birds spend almost all their life in the air. They never walk on the ground, because the length of their wings would stop them from taking off again. Swifts rest by clinging to a vertical surface and they then launch themselves into the air. Frigate birds are large seabirds that sleep on the wing, using only a section of their brain to keep flying.

                        The longest distance regularly travelled by birds is the annual migration of Arctic terns from the Arctic to the Antarctic. They travel 30,000 km each year. Even the tiny hummingbird is able to travel enormous distances and they have been known to cross the Gulf of Mexico, which is a vast distance of 800 km.

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Most plants and animals have popular names that vary from place to place. Scientific names are given so that the same name is recognized everywhere.

Latin is used for scientific names. Centuries ago, it was the language of learned people. Scientific names are in two parts. The first is the generic name, which describes a group of related living things, and the second name is the specific name, which applies only to that living thing.

The specific name may describe the living thing, or it could include the name of the person who discovered it. For example, a human being is called Homo sapiens (thinking man). A fossil form of Homo, or man, is Homo habilis (tool-using man).

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