Sis forScales (fish)
Sis forScales (device)
Scales are a device used for measuring how heavy something is. There are many different types of scales. Originally scales were made to balance like a seesaw, and you put the thing you wanted weighed on one side and weights on the other side until it balanced out.
Today, scales are often digital and need batteries to work. There are scales you stand on so you know how much you weigh, kitchen scales like in the picture so you can weigh food, and really big industrial scales to weigh trucks full of grain so it can be sold by weight.
Snails can be found on land and in the water, both freshwater and the sea. A snail without a shell is called a slug. Snails range in size from smaller than your little fingernail to a sea snail that can grow to 30 inches long. The biggest land snail is only grows to 12 inches long. They come in a wide variety of colours and patterns.
Snails have a pair of eyes on stalks and a pair of feelers below them, to stop it bumping into things. It can suck both its feelers and eyes into its body for safety, and it can hide in its shell if it is disturbed. Snails have one foot that they "walk" with. They eat by scraping the top layer of their food with their tongue, which is covered in tiny sharp teeth. If you listen hard to a snail when it is eating, you can hear it scraping.
Most animals have tails - people and apes don't. A tail is just an extension of the animal's backbone. Animals use their tails to communicate - dogs wag their tails when they are happy, cats wave their tails when they are angry and put their tails straight up to say "hello".
Animals like cows and horses use their tails to swat flies away. The kangaroo has a big, heavy tail that it uses to balance itself when it hops.
Your toenails are the hard, flat things on the tops of your toes. They help protect your toes from damage. Toenails grow much more slowly than fingernails.
Whales are a large animal that lives in the sea. They are not fish, as they need to come to the surface to breathe, the same as we do when we are swimming. There are many different varieties of whale. Some eat fish, penguins and seals, but the majority of whales have a large mouth full of tiny bristles that they use to filter tiny sea animals out from the water to eat.
The whale is closely related to the dolphin.