A Little Bit More
If you or I are closed up in a tight space, we’ll be uncomfortable at best. At worst, we’ll be really upset by our tight circumstances but snakes are different. If you’ve ever had a pet snake, you know that it seemed most at ease when curled up in a corner or inside a small, enclosure within its cage. Those snakes you see in zoos, although often in rather small cages, are really well-suited for these small, confined areas and are not being mistreated.
Although we’ve focused on snakes to illustrate this phenomenon, there are other animals that are also thigmotactic too. These include:
Elephant Seals – haul out on the beach and lie around in very tight clusters, touching one another
Rats – prefer to huddle together in groups as they sleep
Earwigs (insect) – like to be in tight crevices
Cockroaches – like to have their bodies touching a surface on the side, top and beneath their bodies
Holiday Darter © Solon Morse
Many bottom-dwelling fishes (flounders and darters) – prefer to be on the bottom of the water or in cracks and crevices in coral or rocky areas
Human babies – are most at ease when held. They are especially at ease when they are skin to skin with their tummies touching their mother.
Activities
Science – Give Me Lots of Space
Objectives: Realize that some animals have the opposite preference
Materials: “Thinking cap”
Well, I’ve had a bit of difficulty trying to come up with an activity that might coordinate with our subject of thigmotaxis but maybe I have an idea that would work for you. Although our unit focuses on animals that prefer to be in tight places, what about those animals that prefer to be in very “open” places? Let me give you a list of some space-loving animals I’ve thought of to get you started. You may not want to share these with your students initially just to see if they can come up with some animals on their own.
- Whales – mammal of the open ocean
- Ostrich – bird living on open plains
- Bluefin Tuna – fish of the open ocean
- Great White Shark – fish of the open ocean
- Emperor Penguin – bird of the open ocean
- Giant Squid – mollusk of the deep, but open ocean
These are a few animals that came to mind. If students can think of some really open places, and then animals that live there, they’ll be pretty close to figuring out which animals to add to this list.
Key Concepts
Adaptations and Diversity, Behavior and Regulation
Questions
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