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Animals
Lions
What if you could yell to a friend who lived several miles away—and your friend could hear you? That is how loud a lion can roar! No wonder this mighty animal is called the king of beasts. Lions are big cats. Along with tigers, lions are the world’s biggest and strongest cats. There are two kinds of lions, African and Asian lions. Lions live on grassy plains, savannas, and dry woodlands in Africa and
MASSIVE BODIES
Lions have huge shoulders, strong front legs, and powerful jaws. Their paws have long, sharp claws. To keep its claws sharp, a lion draws them in when not in use.
Dolphins
DOLPHIN(aquatic mammal), fast-swimming mammal belonging to the order Cetacea, which also includes whales and porpoises. Sleek and powerful swimmers, dolphins are found in seas throughout the world; some inhabit freshwater rivers and lakes. Characteristic features of most dolphins are long snouts with rows of sharp teeth, and rounded foreheads with a nostril on top, known as the blowhole.
There are at least 40 species of dolphins. Dolphins resemble fish in many ways, but they exhibit a number of true mammalian characteristics:
Animals
Animals
live everywhere. They roam the land. They burrow in the ground. They swim in the sea. They fly through the air. They creep, they leap, they soar, and they dive. A very few—including corals and barnacles—stay in one place.
Animals come in all sizes. The biggest animals are whales, which can be 100 feet (30 meters) long. The smallest animals can only be seen through a microscope.
Zoologists (scientists who study animals) have found more than 2 million species (kinds) of animals. They think they have discovered only a small portion of all animals on Earth.
Whales
What is the biggest animal on Earth? Hint: It’s not an animal that lives on land. It’s the blue whale. Blue whales can grow to be 80 feet (24 meters) long and weigh 150 metric tons. The heart of a blue whale is as large as a small car!
WHALES ARE NOT FISH
The body of a blue whale looks a lot like the body of a fish. All whales look like fish, but whales are not fish. Whales are mammals that live in water.
Starfish
Try to picture an animal that is almost all mouth and arms. Its arms are covered with feet, and it has no brain. This strange and wonderful sea animal is called a starfish. Another name for starfish is sea star.
The arms of a starfish give it the shape of a star. Starfish get their name from this shape. Most starfish have five arms and look like the five-pointed stars on the American flag. Other starfish have six, seven, or more arms. Some only have four arms. There are about 1,500 different kinds of starfish.
DO STARFISH WALK ON THEIR ARMS?
A starfish uses the feet on its arms to move around. These special feet are called tube feet because they are like hollow tubes.