Animal features help them live — Science, 4–6 years
Animals have body parts and coverings that help them find food, stay safe or cope with their surroundings.
Bodies have helpful features
Look at a duck’s webbed feet, a cat’s whiskers or a hedgehog’s spines. These features are parts or coverings of the body that help an animal live in its own way. A feature may help it move, find food, keep warm or stay safe.
Why do animals have different parts?
Animals do not all face the same problems. A duck needs to paddle and find food in water, while a rabbit needs to run across land and notice danger. Different features make particular jobs easier, so animals with different ways of living often have different bodies.
A duck’s feet
Start with the problem: the duck needs to move through water. Step 1: its toes spread apart. Step 2: skin joins the toes, making a broad foot. Step 3: when the duck pushes back, the foot pushes water back and the duck moves forwards. On the return stroke, the foot turns so it offers less resistance.
A feature is not a tool
It is easy to say that a duck has webbed feet because it chooses to wear swimming shoes, or that a hedgehog grows spines when it feels cross. That is a reasonable picture because people use tools and show feelings. Animal features are body parts that grow as part of the animal, not objects it puts on for a job.
Features in the world around us
A bird’s beak gives clues about how it finds food, and a dog’s claws help it grip the ground. Designers sometimes study such features when making objects: fins can inspire swimming equipment, and hooks can resemble a claw. The animal part and the human-made object may look alike, but they are not the same thing.
Keep exploring
Other languages
Loading MyLeoNes™…