Life in low places and high places
Underground caves are blacker than a lump of coal. Mountaintops are cold
and bare. It doesn’t seem possible for animals to live in these places.
But animals do live in them.
Small, white fish swim in a stream in an underground cave. The fish have
no eyes! There is no light at all in the cave, so eyes would be of no
use to the fish.
But even though they are blind, the fish never bump into anything or
each other. These fish can feel things in the water before they touch
them.
One of the fish swims toward the side of the cave. A tiny, eyeless, pale
crayfish is hanging from a rock. The
Rocky Mountain Goat and Kid
Mountain goats can climb to the highest, narrowest parts of a mountain.
Their hoofs keep them from slipping.
fish rushes forward and gulps down the crayfish. The fish can feel and
smell so well that it can find food easily.
On a mountaintop far, far above the cave, a Rocky Mountain goat is
looking for plants to eat. The goat climbs higher and higher. The way is
steep and narrow, but the goat climbs easily. Its cuplike hoofs keep it
from slipping. The goat can go where no other animal can follow. The
goat is right at home on the high, steep mountaintop.
Millions of years ago animals moved into every place in the world where
they could go. That’s why today there are animals living in even the
highest and lowest places. And the animals all changed to fit the places
where they lived. That’s why Rocky Mountain goats don’t slip and cave
fish don’t need eyes.
The cave fish has no eyes. It doesn’t need them in its coal- black
world. It finds its food by feel and smell.
Cave Fish
