Animal Survivors
Animal Survivors
Tardigrades are also known as water bears or moss piglets. That’s because they live in water- or anywhere that is damp or wet. Their favorite habitat is the dirt at the bottom of lakes or on soggy pieces of moss. These tiny survivors have been found in extreme environments from the bottom of the ocean to 22,000 feet (6,706 m) up in the Himalayan mountains!
When a tardigrade’s environment gets too harsh or dangerous, it curls into a ball, pulls in its head and legs, and allows its body to dry out. This dehydrated tardigrade is called a tun. Tuns can survive almost anywhere! They can be put in boiling liquid, exposed to radiation, and withstand pressure six times more than at the deepest part of the ocean. When conditions improve, they can rehydrate in a few hours and be perfectly fine!
The six-volume “Astonishing Animals” series examines the physical and behavioral adaptations of a variety of animals which help them to survive. Each title is comprised of 13 chapters as well as a table of contents, a glossary, an index and a brief list of books and websites for further investigation. Animals featured in the series are representative of all of the major groups and range from the microscopic tardigrade to the seven-metre-long beaked whale. Some of the animals will be familiar to readers while others are quite rare and unique. Besides the main body of the text, there are Fact File boxes which, with the exception of the title about animal celebrities, tell where the animal is found, its habitat, size and diet. (In the case of Animal Celebrities, the Fact File box states the animal’s date of birth and death, where it lived, and its “hobbies”.) As well, smaller “Wow!” text boxes provide interesting trivia, some examples being that a 270-kg octopus can squeeze through a 2.5 cm opening and that chimpanzees’ nests contain lower levels of bacteria than human beds. An attractive layout and abundant, eye-catching colour photographs add to the series’ visual appeal.
Animal Survivors focuses on the adaptations which help animals to survive in the most inhospitable environments. Some animals’ bodies, such as that of the fennec fox, have adapted to the extreme heat of the desert, while others, such as the Emperor penguin and the red flat bark beetle (which produces a natural antifreeze) have adapted to extreme cold. Brine shrimp can survive fire, boiling and insecticide. Areas of drought, altitude and dangerous water pressure also have an impact on the animals which dwell there. In this title, there is also information about tardigrades, lungfish, wild yaks, Himalayan jumping spiders, tube worms, echidnas, kangaroo rats and Greenland sharks.
Enjoyable and engaging, with just enough information to pique the reader’s interest, the “Astonishing Animals” series does a good job of introducing readers to some incredible animals.
Gail Hamilton is a former teacher-librarian in Winnipeg, Manitoba.