Biology · page 31 2 3 4 5201Guinea pigs: wheeks, popcorning and vitamin C13 sentences · A guinea pig is neither a pig nor from Guinea: it is a rodent from the mountains of South America, a plump c…202Hamsters, gerbils and pet rats and mice16 sentences · A hamster can stuff its cheeks so full of seeds that its head looks twice as wide, because stretchy pouches…203The fish tank: water, gills, heaters and the right neighbours14 sentences · Fish breathe the oxygen dissolved in water through their gills, and their droppings make waste that would po…204Goldfish and pond fish: the three-second memory myth16 sentences · People joke that a goldfish forgets everything after three seconds, so swimming round a bowl is always a new…205Budgies and canaries15 sentences · Budgies, short for budgerigars, are small parrots from the dry grasslands of Australia, where they fly in hu…206Parrots: talkers, nutcrackers and long lives15 sentences · Parrots are some of the cleverest birds on Earth, and they live in groups where every bird must learn the so…207Horses and ponies: how they eat, see, sleep and live in herds14 sentences · A horse is a big, strong animal, but in the wild it was always someone's dinner, so almost everything about…208Hooves, riding and caring for a horse, plus donkeys and mules15 sentences · When a farrier, a person who cares for horses' feet, nails a metal shoe onto it, the horse does not mind, ju…209Cows: cud, milk, burps and the red cape myth14 sentences · Grass is so tough that people cannot get any goodness from it at all, yet a cow turns it into milk and meat.210Pigs: mud, snouts and brains14 sentences · People call a messy room a pigsty, but pigs are among the cleanest and cleverest animals on the farm.211Sheep and goats: wool, flocks, climbers and the tin-can myth16 sentences · Sheep and goats are cousins that people have kept for about ten thousand years, but they live very different…212Chickens: eggs, pecking order and living dinosaurs15 sentences · Look closely at a chicken's scaly feet, sharp claws and beady eye as it stalks across the yard, and you are…213Ducks, geese and farm myths13 sentences · A duck can paddle about all day in a winter pond and come out with dry feathers and warm insides, and that i…214Hedgehogs: spines, hibernation and how to help them15 sentences · A hedgehog wears about five thousand spines, and each one is a stiff, hollow hair.215Foxes and squirrels15 sentences · Two wild animals live right next to us in parks and gardens, and both are cleverer than they look.216Garden birds: robins, blackbirds, tits and feeders14 sentences · Start digging in a garden and a robin will often hop down beside your spade within minutes, because every tu…217Worms, snails and slugs17 sentences · After a night of rain the lawn and the pavement are full of pink earthworms, and the paths are criss-crossed…218Bees and wasps in the garden19 sentences · On a sunny day a honeybee lands on a flower, drinks sweet nectar with its long tongue and flies off with yel…219Butterflies, moths and ladybirds18 sentences · A fat green caterpillar munches leaves for weeks, then hangs up and hardens into a chrysalis, and inside tha…220Spiders and other minibeasts under logs and stones18 sentences · On a misty autumn morning the garden is full of spider webs shining with dew, each one spun from silk that c…221Pigeons: head bobbing, homing and city cliffs15 sentences · The grey pigeons on every town square are the grandchildren of wild rock doves, birds that nest on sea cliff…222Rats and mice in the city, and the elephant and mouse myth17 sentences · Wherever people live, brown rats and house mice live too, in drains, sheds, walls and under floors, eating t…223Gulls: chip thieves, rain dances and salty water16 sentences · Anyone who has eaten chips on a seaside promenade knows the gull that swoops down and snatches one right out…224Raccoons, opossums and skunks17 sentences · In a city like Toronto, a family may wake up to find the green bin open and rubbish all over the drive: a ra…225Caring for a pet: needs, dangers and responsibility17 sentences · When a family brings a dog home from a rescue centre, everyone is excited, but the dog is now counting on th…226Kindness to wild animals14 sentences · Walking through a meadow, a family finds a baby deer curled up alone in the long grass and wants to rescue i…227The vet16 sentences · A vet is a doctor for animals, but unlike a children's doctor, a vet must know about dogs, cats, hamsters, h…228Cartoon pets and animal myths put right13 sentences · Cartoons are full of animals that talk, cook and win every chase, and that is fine, because they are stories…229Echolocation: how bats see with sound17 sentences · Shout «hello» in a big empty hall and a moment later the walls shout it back: that returning sound is an echo.230Echolocation in the sea and in people: dolphins, whales, swiftlets and clicking humans14 sentences · Bats are not the only animals that find their way with echoes; dolphins, many whales, some cave birds, shrew…231Electric senses: electric eels, sharks, the platypus bill and charged bees18 sentences · Every living animal makes tiny electric signals: each heartbeat and each twitch of a muscle sends out a weak…232Hidden senses: magnetic birds and turtles, ultraviolet bees, heat-seeing snakes, whiskers and lateral lines16 sentences · We have five well-known senses, but many animals have extra ones we can only imagine: they feel the Earth's…233Animal minds: clever crows, ravens, jays and parrots16 sentences · Their brains are small, but the nerve cells are packed very tightly, so a crow's walnut-sized brain holds ab…234Animal minds: the octopus, escape artist and puzzle solver14 sentences · An octopus is a soft relative of snails and clams, yet it is one of the cleverest animals in the sea.235Animal minds: dolphins' names, orca grandmothers and whale songs17 sentences · Dolphins and whales are mammals that went back to the sea about 50 million years ago, and they took big, soc…236Animal minds: elephants' memory, feelings and the mouse myth16 sentences · «An elephant never forgets» is an old saying, and like many old sayings it is partly true: elephants have ex…237Animal minds: what dogs and cats feel and understand (and do cats really chase mice?)15 sentences · Dogs and cats share our homes, so we think we know their minds, but scientists keep finding surprises with c…238Ants: colonies, queens, farmers and living bridges16 sentences · One ant on its own is not very clever, but a colony of thousands works like one big animal that finds food,…239Bees: the waggle dance, the hive and honey17 sentences · A beehive on a summer day is a city of about 50,000 bees, and every bee in it has a job.240Wolves and teamwork: family packs, the alpha myth and hunting together13 sentences · A wild wolf pack is not a gang ruled by a fighting boss: it is a family, a mother and father wolf with their…241Team players and partners: meerkats, naked mole rats, huddles, cleaners (and do lemmings jump?)14 sentences · Some animals survive because they work as a team, like a football side where one keeps goal while the others…242Animal builders: beavers, dams and lodges16 sentences · A beaver is a builder with no tools at all: its teeth are the saw, its front paws are the hands, and its che…243Animal builders: termite mounds, weaver birds and other nest makers16 sentences · In Africa, termites a few millimetres long build mounds taller than a grown man out of soil, spit and droppi…244Animal builders: spiders' webs and silk16 sentences · On an autumn morning a garden fence can glitter with a wheel of dew drops: that is an orb web, usually almos…245More builders: caddis cases, paper wasps, moles, apes' beds and sand circles16 sentences · Look closely at a pond and you may see a tiny tube of stones walking along the bottom: inside is a caddis fl…246Defences: venom in snakes, jellyfish, scorpions and the platypus18 sentences · Venom is a poison that an animal pushes into another animal with fangs, a sting or a spine, like a tiny syri…247Defences: poison, warning colours and mimics14 sentences · A poisonous animal does not bite you; it harms whoever eats it or touches it, so it is best for it if nobody…248Defences: skunks, porcupines, hedgehogs and armour14 sentences · An animal that cannot run fast can still be very hard to eat: it can be spiky, smelly, or covered in armour…249Defences: tricks and myths: playing dead, dropping tails, ink, and do ostriches bury their heads?14 sentences · Some animals escape not with spikes or poison but with a trick, like a magician who makes you look the wrong…250Plants deeper: roots and how they drink, hold and push15 sentences · When you pull up a weed and a long white root slides out of the soil, you are holding the plant's anchor, it…251Plants deeper: leaves and sunlight, how a tree is made of air20 sentences · A leaf is a tiny food factory.252Plants deeper: do trees talk? Fungi, warning smells and giant clones19 sentences · Trees cannot walk, shout or run away, but they are not as silent as they look.253Plants deeper: the oldest, tallest and strangest trees18 sentences · Stand at the foot of a coast redwood in California and the people beside you look like ants: the tallest tre…254Plants deeper: carnivorous plants that count, slip and suck18 sentences · Most plants get what they need from sunlight, air, water and soil, but some live in wet bogs where the soil…255Plants deeper: poisonous and stinging plants and staying safe17 sentences · A plant cannot run away from a hungry animal, so many plants defend themselves with stings, spines, burning…256The microscopic world: cells, the building blocks of life16 sentences · Every living thing is built from cells, tiny living bricks far too small to see with your eyes alone; you ar…257The microscopic world: bacteria, good and bad16 sentences · Bacteria are living things made of just one tiny cell, so small that hundreds could sit side by side across…258The microscopic world: viruses and vaccines17 sentences · A virus is far smaller than a bacterium, a tiny packet of instructions in a coat, often drawn like a ball wi…259The microscopic world: tardigrades, mites, plankton and other tiny creatures19 sentences · Scoop a clump of wet moss from a wall, squeeze a drop onto a slide, and you may meet a tardigrade, or water…260The human body deeper: the brain and nerves17 sentences · Your brain is a soft, wrinkly organ about 1.4 kilograms in an adult, made of about 86 billion nerve cells, e…261The human body deeper: the heart and blood in amazing numbers16 sentences · Your heart is a muscle about the size of your own fist, and it never takes a day off: it squeezes blood out…262The human body deeper: lungs, stomach and guts19 sentences · Under your lungs lies a dome of muscle called the diaphragm; when it pulls down, air rushes into your lungs,…263The human body deeper: bones, muscles and skin19 sentences · Bones are not dead sticks like the skeleton in a classroom: they are alive, with blood vessels and cells tha…264How scientists find out: naturalists, Darwin, the microscope and wildlife filming16 sentences · Science about living things starts with looking very carefully: a girl in the park who draws a beetle in her…265Tyrannosaurus rex: what we really know, from teeth and dung to tiny arms14 sentences · Tyrannosaurus rex lived about 68 to 66 million years ago in western North America, and a grown one was about…266The long-necked giants: Diplodocus, Brachiosaurus, Argentinosaurus and Brontosaurus17 sentences · The sauropods were the long-necked plant-eaters, the biggest animals that ever walked on land; Diplodocus wa…267Horns, frills, plates and clubs: Triceratops, Stegosaurus, Ankylosaurus and the duck-bills15 sentences · Plant-eating dinosaurs could not run from every hunter, so many grew horns, frills, plates, spikes and clubs…268Raptors: the real Velociraptor, claws, feathers and film mistakes15 sentences · In the films, raptors are as tall as a man, scaly, and clever enough to open doors, but the real Velocirapto…269Feathered dinosaurs: from Archaeopteryx to the chicken on your plate16 sentences · Birds are living dinosaurs: they come from small, feathered, meat-eating dinosaurs, so the drumstick on your…270Not dinosaurs at all: pterosaurs, plesiosaurs, mosasaurs and Mary Anning16 sentences · Toy boxes and cartoons call every big old reptile a dinosaur, but scientists have a rule: a dinosaur stood w…271The asteroid: the day the dinosaurs died and who survived16 sentences · About 66 million years ago an asteroid about 10 kilometres wide, as wide as a big city, hit what is now Mexi…272Mammoths and the Ice Age giants: sabre-tooths, ground sloths and woolly rhinos17 sentences · In the cartoon «Ice Age» a mammoth, a sabre-toothed cat and a ground sloth travel together, and all three we…273Megalodon and the giants of the sea, past and present15 sentences · Megalodon was a giant shark, perhaps 15 to 20 metres long, with teeth up to 17 centimetres, bigger than a ch…274Terror birds, moas, giant insects and other lost giants16 sentences · After the dinosaurs, the world grew new giants: terror birds taller than a man with beaks like axes, moas ta…275Fossils: how a living thing turns to stone and how we dig it up17 sentences · A fossil is a living thing, or a mark it made, that was kept in rock: a shell, a bone, a leaf, a footprint,…276How old is it? Rock layers, rock clocks, amber and the long story of life16 sentences · Look at the stripes in a cliff: each stripe is a layer of mud, sand or ash that settled on top of the one be…277DNA simply: the recipe in every cell18 sentences · Almost every cell in your body carries a copy of the same long recipe book, called DNA, and it is shaped lik…278Evolution: why giraffes really have long necks16 sentences · An old idea said giraffes stretched their necks to reach high leaves and then passed the longer necks to the…279Natural selection we can watch: moths, finches, germs and tuskless elephants15 sentences · Natural selection is usually slow, but sometimes we can watch it happen within a few years or decades, like…280Evolution myths put right: monkeys, the strongest and missing links15 sentences · The famous picture of a monkey walking step by step into a man is misleading too, because evolution is like…281Extinct forever: the dodo, the passenger pigeon, the thylacine and more16 sentences · Extinct means gone for ever: not one of that kind is left anywhere, and no zoo, no film and no wish can brin…282Comeback stories: bald eagles, humpback whales, condors and the kakapo14 sentences · Not every story ends in extinction: when people stop the harm and protect a kind of animal, it can come back…283Wolves in Yellowstone, beavers in Britain and bringing nature back16 sentences · By the 1920s every wolf in Yellowstone Park in America had been killed, and without them the elk grew bold,…284Conservation heroes: Attenborough, Goodall, Carson, Maathai and the rangers13 sentences · Every comeback story has people behind it: scientists who watched animals for years, writers who warned the…285What a child can do for nature19 sentences · You do not need to be a grown-up scientist to help wild animals.286From field to plate: wheat, flour and bread20 sentences · The slice of toast on your plate started as a grass.287Farm animals: milk, eggs, wool and meat20 sentences · Your breakfast is a farm tour: milk from a cow, an egg from a hen, maybe bacon from a pig, and the wool jump…288Plants we eat: roots, stems, leaves, flowers, fruits and seeds17 sentences · A dinner plate is a plant puzzle.289Food from around the world: how crops travelled the globe16 sentences · Before 1492 Italy had no tomatoes, Ireland had no potatoes and nobody in Europe had tasted chocolate or chil…290Insects as food in other countries17 sentences · At a night market in Thailand a child your age buys a paper cone of fried crickets the way you might buy chi…291Bees, worms and soil: the hidden helpers of our food20 sentences · Without that delivery the blossom would never become an apple.292Dogs from wolves to best friends: living with dogs today22 sentences · The dog was the first animal people ever tamed, long before anyone farmed.293Horses, cattle, camels and chickens: how people tamed animals19 sentences · When you ride a pony you are sitting on thousands of years of history.294Cats through history: Egypt's sacred cats, ship cats and Tom and Jerry22 sentences · Nobody really sat down to tame the cat.295Animal myths put right: elephants and mice, lemmings, ostriches and goldfish16 sentences · Animal myths are like a story passed along a line of children in a game of whispers: something true is seen,…296Animals in the news: true stories, fakes and how to read them17 sentences · Animal stories are some of the most shared news in the world: a baby panda, a shark in a flooded street, a c…297The future of life: de-extinction, climate, coral and frozen zoos17 sentences · Scientists are trying new ways to look after life on Earth: freezing the cells of rare animals, building bri…298The big biology quiz, part 1: habitats and animals15 sentences · Part one is about animals and where they live: the biggest cat, the fastest flier, the longest traveller, th…299The big biology quiz, part 2: plants, the body and microbes15 sentences · Part two of the big quiz looks at the living things we often forget: plants that make their own food, mushro…300The big biology quiz, part 3: dinosaurs, evolution, conservation and food22 sentences · This is the last lesson of the course, so it gathers the big ideas once more.1 2 3 4 5← previousArtsnext →Books↑ back to the schoolThis page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/page/3/