Fascinating Nature
Exceptional Species
Some animals seem too strange to be real. One makes cube-shaped poo, one can crack glass with a punch, and one survived a trip to space! Ready to meet them?
Did you know?
Wombats, furry animals from Australia, make cube-shaped poo! The cubes take shape inside their intestines. Wombats leave them on rocks and logs as 'messages', and the flat sides help stop them from rolling away.
The mantis shrimp punches so hard that it can crack the glass of an aquarium! Its eyes are amazing too: we have 3 kinds of colour-sensing cells, but it has about 12.
Tardigrades, or 'water bears', are tiny animals, usually about half a millimetre long. In 2007, scientists sent some into space for about 10 days. Some survived and even had babies afterwards!
Try this: Invent a Creature
Design a brand-new animal for a strange home: a scorching desert, a snowy mountain top or the dark deep sea. Draw it and label three special features. How does it find food? How does it stay safe? Give it a fun name, like the 'snow-snorkeller', and present it to your family like a real scientist.
Go further: The Jellyfish That Starts Again
Turritopsis dohrnii is a tiny jellyfish, only about 4.5 mm across, smaller than your little fingernail. When it is hurt or starving, it can do something amazing: it turns back into its baby stage, called a polyp, and grows up all over again! That is why people call it the 'immortal jellyfish'. It was first found in the Mediterranean Sea in the 1880s, but its 'restart button' was only noticed in the 1990s.