Meet the cold-blooded champions. Komodo dragons, caimans, bullfrogs, waterfall toads — these reptiles and amphibians have evolved extreme skills to survive as ectotherms, relying on their environment instead of their own body heat. We've put together a collection of BBC video clips all about cold-blooded animals (see Related Resources below). Watch them, then take the Kahoot to see what stuck.
The tricks are surprisingly specific: basilisks use a rapid leg motion to run across water without sinking, while waterfall toads — which can't leap like most frogs — have their own clever way of dodging predators. Explore how these cold-blooded creatures have adapted to thrive, and pick up some solid vocabulary along the way.
In How Snakes Keep Warm in the Cold, narrator Sir David Attenborough describes how red-sided garter snakes survive -40°F (40°C) temperatures during winter as they hibernate underground. Watch as 10,000 males slowly wake up and pile on top of each other for warmth. The race is on for the males to find a mate, but one sneaky snake has a trick up his scales — he pretends to be a female to get warmed up by the others! This video is excerpted from BBC’s Life, a show that explores the remarkable strategies animals and plants use to ensure their survival.
Meet the cold-blooded champions. Komodo dragons, caimans, bullfrogs, waterfall toads — these reptiles and amphibians have evolved extreme skills to survive as ectotherms, relying on their environment instead of their own body heat. We've put together a collection of BBC video clips all about cold-blooded animals (see Related Resources below). Watch them, then take the Kahoot to see what stuck.
The tricks are surprisingly specific: basilisks use a rapid leg motion to run across water without sinking, while waterfall toads — which can't leap like most frogs — have their own clever way of dodging predators. Explore how these cold-blooded creatures have adapted to thrive, and pick up some solid vocabulary along the way.
In How Snakes Keep Warm in the Cold, narrator Sir David Attenborough describes how red-sided garter snakes survive -40°F (40°C) temperatures during winter as they hibernate underground. Watch as 10,000 males slowly wake up and pile on top of each other for warmth. The race is on for the males to find a mate, but one sneaky snake has a trick up his scales — he pretends to be a female to get warmed up by the others! This video is excerpted from BBC’s Life, a show that explores the remarkable strategies animals and plants use to ensure their survival.