They take place out in the Park in all weathers; please ensure that your pupils are suitably dressed for the conditions.

Transcription

1 HABITAT TALKS General points about these talks: They take place out in the Park in all weathers; please ensure that your pupils are suitably dressed for the conditions. We keep group sizes to a maximum of 24 children. If your group is larger than this, we will split them into two or more smaller sets and give the talk more than once. The meeting point for these talks vary, your booking confirmation will detail where your talk will start. The talks are suitable for all children from KS1 upwards The talks we offer are: World Habitats Animals of the African Savannah South American Animals Rainforests Animals of Extreme Environments Artic and Desert

2 TALK: World Habitats The meeting point for this talk is at our giant tortoise enclosure. Islands: using our giant tortoises, we look at the idea that island colonization often started with a smaller range of animal and plant species than mainland habitats and that this often leads to the emergence of some unusual animals and plants. Savannah: we use rhino and/or zebra to illustrate that, in these large areas of tropical grasslands, where many of the large mammalian herbivores are adapted to grazing, with specialised teeth and guts. Australia: Australia is a continent with its own unique fauna. Wallabies are marsupials that move by hopping using both feet with their tail aiding in balance. The means of locomotion is a very efficient way of moving over any terrain. Emu are flightless birds with no primary flight feathers. We will use the emu to illustrate leg bone organisation in birds. Rainforests: Using our Colobus monkeys, we look at adaptations for moving in trees. They need good sight, hearing and touch and move by climbing and walking on the tops of branches, using their tails to help with balance, (whilst apes brachiate and have no need for a tail). Arctic: Using our snowy owls or wolverines, we look at the adaptations needed to survive both in winter months, of very low temperatures and permanent darkness, and in summer months of permanent sunshine. Animals we may use in this talk include: Giant tortoise, white rhinoceros, zebra, Parma wallaby, emu, colobus monkey, snowy owl, wolverine..

3 TALK: Animals of the African Savannah The meeting point for this talk is our rhino house, occasionally the talk will start at our giant tortoise enclosure. Herbivores on the African savannah tend to be large, to avoid predation by lions. This gives them problems of heat control and they tend to have bodies covered in short hairs or have no hair at all. Many of them are grazers and the cutting and chewing of grass requires them to have tooth modifications either teeth that continue to grow throughout their lives and/ or tooth loss in some parts of their jaws when compared with carnivores. Mammals are unable to use much of the material in grass (roughage or cellulose) and many herbivores have a gut that can ferment this for them. Even so, much of what they eat passes straight through their system so they produce a large quantity of faeces. Zebra and giraffe have skin markings that are used for many things including intra specific recognition, heat control and camouflage. Giraffe are browsers and their mouths are adapted to eat leaves on trees. Giraffes long necks are now thought to be adaptations for fighting between males rather than eating leaves high in trees (though they use them for this as well.) Male lions have manes to attract females. Whilst animals living on the ground need good senses of smell and hearing, their senses of touch and sight may be less good than those of animals that live in trees. Carnivores need to spend less time eating than herbivores as they can use almost everything in the meat they eat. Carnivores need to learn to hunt. Lions live in groups, called prides, and hunt as a team. This hunting strategy involves stalking their prey to get close to it before they make their attack. Leopards are solitary and are good ambush hunters, waiting patiently until prey get close before attacking. Leopards are good climbers, unlike lions. (N.B. No talk will cover all the above. What we cover will depend on which animals are where, what questions the children ask and their age, and who gives the talk.)

4 TALK: Animals of South America The meeting point for this talk is our children s farm barn. South America is a very large continent with a huge number of habitats. These range from the high mountains of the Andes to one of the world s driest deserts, via tropical rainforest and savannah. We will use a range of South American animals to illustrate the adaptations animals have to some of these habitats. These include: the good and bad points of ant eating, how to escape from a jaguar, what use is a proboscis, why some animals stott, which animals are eaten by humans, why some mammals have no teeth which animal eats its own poo!

5 TALK: Rainforests General points about this talk: We keep group sizes to a maximum of 20 children as the talk spends some time in our tropical house. We are unable to offer this talk in late June or early July due to pressure of numbers in the walled garden. The meeting point for this talk will be at our penguin enclosure. We will start with the idea that rainforests exist in many parts of the world, not just the tropics. However, tropical rainforests will form the greatest part of the talk and we will use animals in our walled garden as examples of adaptations to this habitat. The adaptations may include: diet, camouflage, size, layers of the forest and which animals live in them, symbiosis, seed dispersal, lianas, pitcher plants, buttress roots. With older groups, we will talk about anatomical adaptations, such as rumens and mimicry, as well as symbiotic relationships between our animals and rainforest plants, as well the more general facts about the forests flora and fauna. Of course, we can adapt the talk to concentrate on whatever aspect of your curriculum you want us to. Animals we may include: It is not possible to see all of these in a 40-minute talk, to some extent the species used will depend on factors such as weather, the animals that are obviously visible on the day. Hornbills, Squirrel monkeys, Agouti, Sloths, Fruit bats, Turacos, Macaws, Tamarins, Marmosets, Titi monkeys, Lemur species (we have eight different species). Plants we may include: Banana palms, Bamboo, Dutchman s pipe, Lianas.

6 TALK: Animals of Extreme Environments Artic and Desert The meeting point for this talk is our penguin enclosure. What are deserts, how do they change over a twenty-four hour period? Where are the Arctic and Antarctic, how do they change over a twelve month period? Keeping cool in deserts: very little fat stored, conserving water, staying underground in the day, the ability to let your temperature rise without having to sweat, moving over sandy ground using big feet, predator/prey relationships, hunting at night, estivation, keeping warm at night. Keeping warm in the snow and ice: hibernation, growing thick coats for winter and moulting in summer, how large animals survive without hibernation by using all day sunshine in the summer to feed and build up fat reserves then starving in the winter, hunting in the dark. Animals we may include: Adaptations to deserts wallabies, meerkats and scimitar horned Oryx Adaptations to the cold penguins, wolverines, snowy owls.