Chapter 9
Desert animals
Class 6
Sumitha.k
TGT English
JNV Wayanad
Kerala
Introduction
The lesson ‘Desert Animals’ is all about the animals who live in the desert. It throws light on the ways the animals in the desert adapt themselves to the weather of the desert and the different methods they use to adjust with its harsh life.
Name the animal which is
called as “the ship of the desert”
1.How does a camel look?
2.What does it eat?
3.Where do camels live?
4.Why is it used to travel in deserts?
Let us begin with some questions?????????
Answers
Desert
3. Difficult for plants and
animals to exist.
1. The driest place on earth
2. Receives less or no rainfall
Name some desert areas in India
2. Kutch in Gujarat
Some deserts are sprinkled with
colourful flowers in spring
OASIS
A FERTILE SPOT IN A DESERT
WHERE WATER IS FOUND
Vocabulary
Scorching - very hot
Dunes - heaps of sand
formed by wind
PEBBLY – STONY
FULL OF STONES
How do the desert animals
live in such harsh conditions?
underground burrows
2. Some animals get moisture from
the plants and animals they eat.
3. Some of them live along the edges
of the desert where there are more
plants and shelter
GEBRILS
Spend the hottest part of the
day in cool underground burrows
Catch drops of moisture on their legs, lift them into the air until
the drops trickle down into their mouths
Darkling
beetles
2. Most snakes are harmless.
3. Some snakes are poisonous.
4. Most snakes lay eggs.
5. Some snakes give birth to their young ones.
snakes
1. Found in the dry rocky deserts of America .
2. Its rattle can be heard as far as thirty meters
3. It can strike with a lightning speed.
4. It prefers to avoid people.
5. It coils and gets ready to bite.
Rattle snake
Rattle snake
It holds its tail upright and rattles
the end whenever it is disturbed.
1. It hears through vibrations in the ground.
2. It feeds on a variety of prey like mice, voles, rats, chipmunks and other small animals.
3. Rattle snakes kill their prey with venom.
CHIPMUNKS
MICE
RAT
VOLE
Vocabulary
Python
Pythons can survive for a year or more without eating
Mongoose
1. Always on the look out for danger
-hawks, eagles and large snakes.
2. They warn one another
with a special
alarm call if they
spot anything suspicious.
by poking their noses into holes,
Overturning rocks with their paws
Scratching the ground with their sharp claws.
2.They are very amusing animals to watch.
3. They feed on beetles, millipedes and other small creatures.
Poking
their nose
in the holes
Overturning
the rocks
with their
paws
Scratching
with claws
Mongoose feed on beetles and millipedes
They travel in groups of about twenty.
Mongooses are famous for
killing snakes without
hurting themselves
Female mongooses have their kitten
at about the same time and are
raised by the whole group in a den.
Vocabulary
Dodge – to move quickly
to avoid an enemy
Camels
Camels were first domesticated by people thousands of years ago.
A thirsty camel can drink as much as
thirty gallons of water -- about 500
full glasses in just ten minutes.
A camel gets all the moisture it needs
from desert plants and can survive for up to ten months without drinking water.
The humps are full of fat which nourishes the camel when food is scarce .
It helps the camel to survive in the desert.
The hump acts as storage containers.
TWO TYPES OF CAMELS
BACTRIAN CAMEL-
HAS TWO HUMPS
DROMEDARY-
HAS SINGLE HUMP
Their mouths are so tough that even the sharp thorn cannot pierce through.
The lesson ‘Desert Animals’ tells us about the animals who live in the desert. It tells us how they have adapted themselves according to the weather of desert and how they cope up with the harsh atmosphere of desert.
Deserts are the driest places on the earth.
The animals that live in deserts have developed their ability to require less water. Like Gerbils spend the hottest part of the day in their underground burrows. Darkling beetles catches drops of moisture on their legs and lift them into the air and drops down into their mouth.
In the dry, rocky deserts of America lives a snake called ‘Rattle snake’. It is called rattle snake because it make a sound with its tail. Another animal which lives in desert is Mongoose. Mongooses love to go in search of food together. They are famous for being able to kill snakes without getting hurt.
Another animal which lives in desert is the camel. They have long shaggy coats to keep warm in winter and shorter, tidier coats in the summer to keep cool. There are two different kinds of camel in the desert. One is called ‘the Dromedary’. It has only single hump. The other one is called ‘Bactrian camel’ and has two humps.
People usually think that camel’s hump is a storage container and it store water in it. But it is not true. Actually humps are full of fat. This fat nourishes the camels when they have nothing to eat. If they have nothing to eat for many days; their humps shrink because fat is used by them.