25 May 🦎 Flat Out Like a Lizard Drinking
How do you drink? You fill a glass with water, put it up to your lips and drink!
What about other animals? It was a David Attenborough documentary that got Dr. Jean curious about this – let’s see what she discovered.
“I was watching footage of flying foxes swooping down to dip their bellies in a river, and then land in trees to lick the water from their fur. Amazing!
What about the other different and wonderful ways that animals can drink?
Butterflies drink nectar through their own built in straw (called a proboscis).
Elephants drink by sucking water into their trunk, curling it toward the mouth, and letting the water from the trunk pour in.
Sandgrouse chicks drink water from their dad’s feathers! Males soak their feathers by squatting down in water, and then return to the nest to give the chicks a drink. The male’s feathers are modified to hold large amounts of water.”
Can you think of other ways that animals drink? How about an imaginary new species of animal that has an entirely new way of drinking? Can you invent a new way for this creature to drink? Have a go using the worksheet below!
But wait, there’s more!
Thorny devils are small Australian lizards that live in the sandy deserts of central and Western Australia. They feed on ants, and their mouths are so specialised, or well suited to eat ants, that they can’t drink water by licking it from puddles or drops of condensation. So they have had to come up with a different way of drinking.
Follow on with Jean in the video above as she explores the incredible way that thorny devils drink, and play with some things you have at home to show the process in action.
Click on the link below for your very own experiment card.