Review the key concepts, formulae, and examples before starting your quiz.
🔑Concepts
Animals have different 'Super Senses' that help them communicate and survive in their environment.
Ants use a sense of smell to leave a trail of chemicals called pheromones. Other ants follow this smell to find food or their way back to the nest.
Some male insects, like the silk moth, can find their female by her smell from many kilometers () away.
Dogs mark out their own area on the road. They can make out if another dog has come into their area by the smell of its urine or feces.
Birds and monkeys use sound to give alarm calls. For example, a langur gives a specific warning call to alert others about a tiger or leopard.
Birds have different sounds for different types of danger. There is a different warning call if the enemy is coming from the sky or if the enemy is on the ground.
Some animals start behaving in a different way when an earthquake or storm is about to come. In , tribes in the Andaman Islands noticed animals behaving strangely and moved to a safer part of the island before the Tsunami hit.
Snakes do not have external ears. They only feel the vibrations on the ground, represented as .
Sloths spend almost hours a day sleeping while hanging upside down on a tree branch.
Lizards go into a long, deep sleep (hibernation) during the cold season, making them disappear for months.
📐Formulae
💡Examples
Problem 1:
If a sloth sleeps for hours every day, how many hours is it awake? Represent this as a fraction of the total day.
Solution:
Awake hours = hours. Fraction = .
Explanation:
Since there are hours in a day, we subtract the sleeping time to find the active time.
Problem 2:
How do ants identify the path taken by their group members?
Solution:
Ants leave a trail of chemicals (pheromones) on the ground. The following ants use their antennae to sense the chemical concentration to stay on the path.
Explanation:
This is a form of chemical communication where the sense of smell is the primary 'super sense'.
Problem 3:
Explain why birds have different alarm calls for an eagle versus a cat.
Solution:
Birds use distinct sound frequencies and patterns to communicate the direction of danger. An aerial threat requires a different escape response than a land threat.
Explanation:
Differentiation in alarm calls helps the group understand whether they should hide under bushes or fly higher into the canopy.