How Animals Eat (1948)

[Music] this might be you and your family at the breakfast table almost any morning eating the foods you need to keep you healthy and make you grow up strong of course when you eat you have these things to help you and the foods you eat are cooked meats from animals cooked vegetables and raw vegetables why you're not so different from other animals are you but what about these foods you don't find them on your table many animals do let's see how some of the animals catch and eat their food throughout your life you've watched your pets or farm animals eat their food perhaps you've seen the flat stubby teeth that cows have for grinding up the grasses and grains they eat but did you ever notice some of the ways in which other kinds of animals are equipped for eating well we're going to look at a few of them right now these birds are Eagles and a great deal of their food is meat Eagles have sharp beaks for tearing their food into small bits beaks which they often use for killing small prey and they have strong sharp claws for holding their food while they tear it to pieces with their beaks many other animals are equipped in the same way this is Roadrunner another meat-eating bird a furious bird with strange eating habits he likes snakes lizards and snails especially snails like this one the Roadrunners sharp eyes helped him find his food and he soon spies the snail snails have hard shells to protect their soft bodies but the roadrunner has a way to solve that problem he merely goes to the nearest rock and then he pounds and pounds a snail on it until the shell breaks so that he can get at the snail inside mr. roadrunner strong beak comes in mighty handy and helping him get his food the Pelican is a funny-looking bird he fishes for his food the lower part of his large beak sometimes serves as a great pouch in which to hold the fish he catches the pelicans fly over the water searching for fish which is their main food when a pelican cites food in the water below him he dives down to the surface as soon as he spots the fish in the water he dips in with his huge beech and comes up with a fish having a beak such as the pelican has is almost like having your own built-in fishing rod the common garden spider who usually lives in the tall grass spins a sticky web in which to catch and store her food supply she lives cheaply on insects when an insect gets caught in the sticky web it's held fast and mrs. spider immediately begins to spin more web in which to wrap the insect so that he'll stay there until she's ready to eat him at some later time this insect the praying mantis looks much like a leaf or green twig if he remains quiet and motionless his meal sometimes will come to him in cases like this is great oversized claws are useful for holding the captured insect and the sharp jaws are built for chewing right through a piece of food notice the way in which the Mantis holds is fooled while eating after a hearty meal on a nice juicy insect the praying mantis washes himself much like a cat licking his paws and forelegs and wiping his jaws this animal has a very special diet ants that's why he's called an anteater he's equipped with a long thin sticky tongue which he uses to pick up the ants he searches for his food wherever ants may live on the ground or in the trees and old partly rotten tree is just the place to look for them he hunts around until he locates the nest of live ants if he finds no opening in it he makes one so he can get his long tongue into the nest if you look closely you can see the large toenails or claws on each front foot the anteater uses these to rip the nest apart so he can scoop up the ants with his long sticky tongue the raccoon likes crabs and other shellfish which he catches easily these small crabs will make a very tasty meal for mr. raccoon but sometimes one gets away from him and he has to dig for it the raccoon also likes fish which he catches with his front paws and eats with his sharp teeth most interesting of all the raccoon washes his food whenever possible turning it over and over in the water while he's eating so it is that every animal in this world is especially equipped in some manner to catch and eat the food must have in order to survive food which it must have to live and reproduce it's Kyle how sharp are your eyes can you discover what special equipment this animal has for food getting perhaps this clue will help you do you see now in what special way is this animal equipped to catch and eat its food does this help you find out this one should be easy to discover do you see perhaps you can discover other examples and the animals you see in your books or all around you almost every day [Music]