Stage 4 Comp - Animals - Extreme Survivors - Comprehension Pack.pdf

STAGE 4 Unit focus: Animals Text focus: Information Text Extreme Survivors Animals have made homes in the world’s most challenging places. Here we meet some of the planet’s su...

STAGE 4 Unit focus: Animals Text focus: Information Text Extreme Survivors Animals have made homes in the world’s most challenging places. Here we meet some of the planet’s success stories. Highest Life at high altitude holds many challenges. There isn’t much oxygen and it’s cold and windy. Despite this, animals survive on the roof of the Earth. Snow leopards spend the summers at heights of up to 20,000 feet above sea level. Their thick spo ed fur keeps them warm and allows them to stay camouflaged. Their big paws help them grip on the rough ground. Yaks have thick coats to keep them warm. Their large lungs and hearts help them take in oxygen and pump it around the body. Insects have found ways of making the mountains their home too. The Himalayan jumping spider has to feed on insects blown up the mountain from lower down. Deepest Creatures of the deep ocean are amongst the weirdest and most wonderful species on Earth. They have to cope with enormous pressure. It was described in Blue Planet 2 as being the “equivalent of 50 jumbo jets stacked on top of one another”. The Mariana snailfish is the deepest fish yet discovered. It has so bones and special chemicals that help it withstand the pressure. It only needs very small eyes because there isn’t much light. Some animals live deep underground too. There are worms living an amazing 3.6km beneath the Earth’s crust. They thrive despite the heat, low oxygen and crushing conditions. Scientists previously believed it was impossible for anything to live so far below the surface. Coldest Polar bears are an icon of the Arctic extremes. Their white coats camouflage them against the snow. Their enormous feet spread their weight on the ice and give them be er grip. They have a layer of fat and thick fur to keep them warm. Emperor penguins in Antarctica use an extra strategy to protect themselves from the cold. They huddle in groups taking turns to be on the outside before then warming up on the inside of the huddle. Wood frogs however have yet another method: in the coldest weather they freeze and their heart stops! When the warmer A temperatures return, they defrost and their heart restarts. ding ro Rea und all resources ©2023 Literacy Shed e um C u r r ic ul Th http://www.literacyshedplus.com Hottest Animals have found varied ways of coping with extreme heat. Camels have large feet to allow them to walk on hot sand, long eyelashes to protect their eyes from sand and nostrils that they can close to keep the sand out. They store fat in their hump rather than spread around their whole body where it might keep them too hot. Other species, including a rodent called a jerboa, sleep in cool burrows during the heat of the day and come out at night when it’s cooler. The fennec fox loses heat through the blood vessels in its over-sized ears. However, its a worm which yet again takes the crown for extreme survivor. The Pompeii worm lives in 80°C hydrothermal vents in the ocean. Nobody is yet sure how they cope with the heat – the worms die when removed from their habitats in the deep ocean. RETRIEVAL FOCUS 1. Why are large lungs helpful to the yak? 2. What two environments are described as suffering from lack of oxygen? 3. What two extreme environments do worms survive in? 4. What animal survives even though it heart stops? 5. How does the jerboa cope with life in the desert? VIPERS QUESTIONS I How do you think scientists reacted to the discovery of the nematode worm in the Earth’s crust? E What phrase tells us that there may be more animals living in the deep ocean? V What does thriving suggest about how well worms are surviving in the Earth’s crust? V What does the word icon suggest about the polar bear? V What does huddle mean? all resources ©2023 Literacy Shed http://www.literacyshedplus.com