Animal Homes

Animals live in a variety of different kinds of homes from holes in the ground, to caves, nests and trees. Some animals use natural habitat for their homes. Other animals build their own home. Some animals even live in other animal's homes. Let’s explore where some animals make their home.

ROCK CAVES
Many animals like the protection and shelter of rock caves for homes. A cave can provide shelter from the sun on hot days. It can also provide shelter from the wind and cold. Some caves can even provide protection from larger predators. Tigers are the largest member of the cat family. There are many types of tigers mostly living in southern continents such as Asia. They like to live in mountainous regions where caves provide shelter from the heat. Some bears, like the brown bear, like to live in mountainous areas where caves provide a good shelter. Many sea animals also like to live in caves. Animals such as the crab and sea urchin bury themselves among the rocks. The morey eel likes to live in small holes or crevices in a coral reef. They hide in these holes, and quickly emerge to grab a passing fish for food. Bats are the only mammals that can fly. Bats sleep during the day, and come out at night in search of food. Bats use echolocation, the ability to listen to sounds bouncing off objects, to help guide them in the dark and to find food. Many bats live in caves where they are sheltered from light during the day. They hang upside down hooking their feet into cracks in the roof of a cave or in a hollow tree.

Some Animals Live in the Ground Many animals dig burrows in the ground for a home and shelter. A burrow in the ground can provide shelter from the sun on hot days. It can also provide shelter from the wind and cold. A burrow can even provide protection from larger predators. Small rodents like the gopher, ground squirrel, mole, and rabbit dig burrows in the ground, or under logs and rocks, to provide shelter. Many of these animals, like the gopher, create very extensive underground burrow systems. They connect together many entrance and exit holes with tunnels, allowing them to travel underground. Other animals including the earthworm and ants also live in the ground. The earthworm's long, slender body helps it move through moist soil. The earthworm eats and digests the soil as it moves through it. The main food of an earthworm is decomposing plants and leaves. An Earthworm is very beneficial to us as it makes the soil fertile and its’ underground passages allow rain and air to go deep in the soil.


Some Animals Live in Trees. Many animals live in trees as a safe place away from predators on the ground. It is probably not surprising that some animals, such as birds, live in trees. Other animals that live in trees are less common than birds. Although you don't see a snake in a tree very often, some snakes live in trees. Animals often make homes in old hollowed out trees. The tree provides both shelter and protection from other animals and predators. The tree is home to many rodents such as the squirrel. The squirrel lives in many areas of the world. It is easily recognized by its bushy tail. Although some squirrels live in burrows underground, the tree squirrel makes its home in trees. Squirrels are great tree climbers. They can make leaps of 10 to 15 feet from branch to branch. In addition to being a safe place away from predators, the squirrel can collect nuts, berries and fruit for food, and store them in the tree. Owls are large birds of prey who are best known for their hooting calls. Most owls prefer to live in wooded areas, although some owls will find a home in old church steeples or old buildings. Monkeys and chimpanzees are mammals which along with humans are port of the primate family. They have the ability to use tools, such as sticks, to help them catch bugs or to crack open nuts for food. They build their nests from branches and vines in trees. Some snakes, such as the Green Mamba of Africa, live in trees. In trees they can catch lizards, bird's eggs and small rodents for food. Nests are built by birds and other animals, as a home for themselves and especially for their eggs. Most nests are bowl-shaped and built in tree branches, on the ground, or even in buildings. They are made of twigs, leaves, and grass held together with mud or saliva.

Some Animals Live in Hives. The honeybee and bumblebee are very social insects. They live and work in large colonies, and build large nests or hives. These hives are the home for many bees. Inside the hive, the bees build a honeycomb-shaped frame with multiple cells. The cells of the honeycomb are used to store food, such as honey and pollen, or to hold eggs, larvae and pupae. Bees live in colonies, often with several hundred bees sharing the same hive or nest. The hive is usually built in the ground, in trees, or even buildings.
Worker bees collect pollen and nectar from flowers which are used to create wax to build the hive. The queen bee creates the wax in her abdomen, which she uses to build chambers or cells where she lays her eggs. The hexagonal honeycomb is one of the most sturdy and economical structures in the world.



Some Animals Live in Barns. Many domestic animals live on farms. Their home is usually a barn or some form of pen. Most animals raised on farms are used to provide milk or food, but some of them like the horse, can also be used to help with farm work. Come explore some animals that live on a farm, and that live in a barn.

Some Animals live in Webs. A spider's web is very easy to recognize. In addition to be home, the web helps the spider catch food and protect it from some predators. Spiders have the ability to produce silk from an organ in their abdomen called the spinneret. The spider's web has many purposes in addition to being a place to live.
Spiders use their web to trap insects for food. Once an insect is caught, they may also use their web to tie up their victim. Spiders also lay a line of silk as they move around. They anchor the line to a surface, and use the line just like a mountain climber uses their safety rope.

Some Animals Live in Water. About two-thirds of the Earth is covered with water. This is home for many of the Earth's creatures. Many different kinds of animals live in water. A wide variety of fish live in the sea. Many types of fish live in fresh water like rivers and lakes. Other types of fish live in the salt water of the oceans and seas. The water is not only the fishes' home, but it also provides them with the food and oxygen they need to live. Although whales and dolphins live in water, they are mammals. They cannot breathe under water. They must come to the surface to breathe air. They breathe through a blowhole, or nostrils, on the top of their head. Babies are born under water, but must be pushed to the surface by the mother so the baby can take a breath.
The circulatory and respiratory systems have adapted to living in water. Whales and dolphins can dive deep in the water on a single breath.

Some Animals Live in Houses as Pets.

The Beaver

The most prolific civil engineer and Architect among animals is the Beaver!!

Beavers are famously busy, and they turn their talents to reengineering the landscape as few other animals can. When sites are available, beavers burrow in the banks of rivers and lakes. But they also transform less suitable habitats by building dams. Felling and gnawing trees with their strong teeth and powerful jaws, they create massive log, branch, and mud structures to block streams and turn fields and forests into the large ponds that beavers love.
Domelike beaver homes, called lodges, are also constructed of branches and mud. They are often strategically located in the middle of ponds and can only be reached by underwater entrances. These dwellings are home to extended families of monogamous parents, young kits, and the yearlings born the previous spring.
Beavers are among the largest of rodents. They are herbivores and prefer to eat leaves, bark, twigs, roots, and aquatic plants.
These animals are active all winter, swimming and foraging in their ponds even when a layer of ice covers the surface.

Suggested viewing: How does a spider spins its’ web at http://animals.howstuffworks.com/arachnids/spider5.htm

How does a beaver work at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Na2HYq11yuM

Great Rivers

Anatomy of a river

Rivers are the lifelines of our civilizations. A river usually stars from a glacier atop a mountain. Many streams join together to make a river. Smaller rivers, called Tributaries, join the main river. The sides of a river are called River banks. A river Bed is the soil under the river. Drainage Basin is the area whose rain water is collected by the river. A good way to understand what a drainage basin is to think of the area as a shallow dish, or saucer. Whenever rain falls and lands anywhere in the river basin it all runs into the lowest place in the pan, which is the river. Floodplains are the plains around the river which are flooded during rainy seasons.

Rivers usually meet the sea, at a place called the Mouth. They deposit huge amounts of eroded soils there, forming Deltas. Erosion also creates River gorges and canyons.

Great River – The Amazon.
Amazon is the greatest river in the world by a number of measures. It carries the largest amount of water – At places it is so wide that it is called the River Sea, The Amazon is the second longest river in the world. It begins as hundreds of tiny little streams high in the Andes Mountains. It is joined by over two hundred tributaries which flow into the main river. The Amazon carries more water than any of the world's rivers. Each second, between 34 and 121 million litres of water are carried into the Atlantic Ocean. This is because rain falls on more than 200 days every year.
Amazon is so big because it is situated right on the equator, where it rains almost every day. Its’ drainage basin covers the entire northern half of the continent of South America. On its course to the sea, the Amazon flows through the biggest rainforest in the world. More then a third of all species in the world live in the Amazon. It is home to a great number of Parrots, toucans, jaguars, monkeys, fish, snakes and insects.
Boto – or the River Dolphin, the deadly Piranha and the huge Anaconda all share Amazon as their home.

Our Great River- the Ganges.
The Ganges is the main river system in India. Its source is found 3000 metres high in the Himalayas, the world's highest mountains. The Ganges gets its water from the snow melting in the spring and summer months. The course of the Ganges takes it across northern India before it finally reaches its mouth in the Bay of Bengal. The mouth of the Ganges is a delta (it is the World's largest delta).
The Ganges has two main tributaries: the Jumna and the Brahmaputra. The Jumna is 1358 kilometres in length and joins the Ganges at the city of Allahabad. The Brahmaputra is 2900 kilometres long and joins the Ganges in its delta.