Steve Jenkins - How Many Ways Can You Catch a Fly?

How Many Ways ...

... Can You Catch a Fly?

Steve Jenkins & Robin Page

Houghton Mifflin Company Boston 2008

All animals must find or catch food to stay alive. Most have to avoid being eaten themselves. Others may need to make shelters or build nests. And some are trying to hatch their eggs and protect their young. There are millions of different kinds of animals, and they have come up with some ingenious solutions to these problems. See if you can figure out how the animals in these pages will snare a fish, hatch an egg, use a leaf, catch a fly, dig a hole, or eat a clam. If you'd like more information about these animals, you can find it at the back of the book.

How many ways can you snare a fish?

Fish are slippery, quick, and good at escaping danger. But they have clever enemies, and most face the constant threat of being eaten by other animals.

A diving beetle can breathe underwater from a bubble of air trapped beneath its wings. It seizes a fish with its legs and devours it with powerful jaws.

The anhinga (an-hing-guh) dives underwater for fish or stalks them in the shallows. It stabs a fish with its sharp bill, tosses it into the air, and swallows it headfirst.

As salmon swim upstream to lay their eggs, a grizzly bear waits.

It stands in the rapids and grabs fish in midair as they leap from the water.

As a group of dolphins circles beneath a school of fish, each dolphin blows a stream of bubbles. The fish crowd together inside this bubble "net," and the dolphins swim straight up through the fish, snapping them up left and right.

The electric eel uses special organs along its body to produce a powerful jolt of electricity that can stun or kill its prey.

The matamata (ma-ta-ma-ta) rests on the bottom of a lake or stream. When a fish comes near, it sticks out its neck, opens its mouth, and expands its throat. The sudden suction pulls the fish into the turtle's mouth.

How many ways can you hatch an egg?

Many animals reproduce by laying eggs. Some try to guarantee that they will have surviving offspring by laying thousandseven millionsof eggs. Most of the eggs won't make it, but chances are at least a few will hatch. Other animals produce only a few eggs but take better care of them, sometimes in surprising ways.

The white tern lives on islands with few predators, so it doesn't bother to make a nest.

It lays its single egg in the open, often balanced on a tree branch.

Earwigs are among the few insects that take care of their eggs. A mother earwig curls her body around her eggs to, keep them safe and constantly licks them to keep them moist and clean.

After a mother Surinam toad (soor-uh-nahm) lays her eggs, the father places them on the skin of her back. There, in small pits, tadpoles hatch from the eggs. After a few months, the tadpoles have become little toads, and they push their way out.

Almost all mammals give birth to live young. The echidna (ih-kid-nuh) is an exception the mother lays eggs, placing them in a pouch on her belly.

Young echidnas, known as puggles, spend several weeks in the pouch after hatching.

The ichneumon wasp (ik-noo-muhn) lays its eggs inside a caterpillar. When the eggs hatch, the wasp larvae eat the caterpillar from the inside out.

A mother Polynesian megapode buries her eggs in ash at the rim of a volcanic crater. The heat of the volcano keeps them warm until they hatch.

How many ways can you use a leaf?

Leafy green plants cover much of the earth. Leaves are important to both plants and animals, because they can make food from sunlight, air, and water. Many animals eat leaves, but some creatures have found more unusual uses for them.

Using her sharp beak and silk from a spider's web, a tailorbird sews a leaf into a pouch that will hold her nest and eggs.

Leaf-cutting ants snip leaves into pieces and carry them to their nest. There the leaves are used to grow a fungus that is "farmed" in underground chambers. This fungus becomes food for the ants.

The orangutan (aw-rang-oo-tan) lives in the rainforest. To stay dry, it sometimes uses a large leaf as an umbrella.

Capuchin monkeys (cap-yoo-chin) rub their bodies with the leaves of certain trees. They probably do this to keep insects away as well as to make themselves smell good to other monkeys.