The tropical seas with their colourful coral reefs are one of the most conspicuous habitats of the world. The bizarre-shaped coral reefs provide home to many colourful fish, snails, sea urchins, prawns, and shells. Other inhabitants are also present in the water—sea turtles, whose armour is flatter than that of the land turtles, hammerhead sharks with their hammer-shaped broad head, and some other animals that are even more dangerous than sharks.
Fish move by flapping their fins or through wriggling movements of their body. In addition, they have an air bladder, which they can fill with gases when needed. These features make them lighter and they can float in the water like a submarine. Jellyfish usually drift. To move forward, they pull together their cap and push the water downwards—a same recoil principle that is used in jet fighters and octopuses.
Pelicans use the sack for catching fish. Interestingly, different species of pelicans use different hunting methods. Some hunt in a semicircular formation and drive the fish from deep to shallow water so that the fish cannot dive down. The pelicans then immerse their long beaks in the water and scoop the fish in their sacks. The baby pelicans feed by taking the fish from the sack of the parents. Another species, the brown pelicans, does a vertical nosedive in the water from a height of 10-20 m and fills its sack with fishes from the deep water.
The growth rate of the frog’s population is the same in ponds near the coast or in the garden at home. Tadpoles develop from fertilized gelatinous eggs. These are larvae of frogs, which have gills and move forward with the help of a tail. Gradually, they go through a transformation to become a frog. The process is called metamorphosis. The tadpoles develop front and back legs, cartilages become bones, the tail retracts, lungs develop, and the gills regress. Now, it can move on land as well as water. Such a metamorphosis takes place in other animals too, for instance in butterflies or beetles.
The highest mountain peak of the world is Mount Everest with a height of 8850 m. Animal do not live on ice-covered mountain peaks and in the areas where even mountaineers can manage only with an oxygen flask. Animals that have adapted themselves to the rough conditions live below a height of 6000 m – goat-like animals such as Himalayan tahrs, ibexes and cashmere goats, the pikas with their small ears and the endangered snow leopard. Yaks are also found here, which the local people use for carrying loads.
There are two wild species of camels in the highlands of the South American Andes: vicunas and guanacos. Contrary to their Asian and African counterparts, the two-humped Bactrian camel and the single-humped Arabian camel respectively, vicunas and guanacos do not have any humps and are also much smaller. Guanacos live in open grasslands at a height of up to 4000 m, and vicunas live in higher regions. About 5000 years ago, humans started breeding animals in the Andes, which gave rise to the species of lama and alpaca. The smaller alpacas provide very soft wool.
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