Amazing Animals — Reading Comprehension Lesson

Reading Passage

Amazing Animals

The animal kingdom is full of creatures with abilities that seem almost impossible. Bats navigate in complete darkness using echolocation — they emit high-frequency sound pulses and listen to the echoes that bounce back from objects, building a precise sound picture of their surroundings. Some species of bat can detect an object as thin as a human hair in total darkness. Electric eels generate electric fields strong enough to stun prey or deter predators — a large electric eel can produce a discharge of up to 600 volts, more than enough to knock a human off their feet.

Some animals survive conditions that would kill almost any other creature. The tardigrade, a microscopic animal also called a “water bear,” can survive being frozen, dried out completely, exposed to radiation thousands of times the lethal dose for humans, and even the vacuum of outer space. It does this by entering a state called cryptobiosis, in which its metabolism nearly stops and it becomes essentially inert until conditions improve. The wood frog of North America freezes solid during winter — its heart stops, it stops breathing, and ice crystals form in its blood — then thaws and hops away in spring.

Animal mimicry is one of nature’s most astonishing strategies. The mimic octopus of Southeast Asia can impersonate the shape and movement of more than 15 different species, including lionfish, flatfish, and sea snakes, choosing the most appropriate disguise based on the predator threatening it. The lyrebird of Australia is one of the world’s greatest vocal mimics, capable of reproducing with near-perfect accuracy the calls of dozens of other bird species, as well as chainsaws, camera shutters, and car alarms. Many harmless species of butterfly, snake, and insect have evolved to look almost identical to toxic species, gaining protection without the metabolic cost of producing venom.

Migration is another arena where animals display jaw-dropping endurance. The Arctic tern makes the longest migration of any animal, flying from its Arctic breeding grounds to Antarctica and back each year — a round trip of up to 56,000 miles. Bar-tailed godwits fly non-stop from Alaska to New Zealand, a journey of more than 7,000 miles over nine days without eating, drinking, or sleeping. Before departure, they shrink their digestive organs to save weight and double their body fat as fuel. The monarch butterfly migrates up to 3,000 miles from Canada to its wintering grounds in central Mexico, navigating by the sun and Earth’s magnetic field.

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