Astounding Creatures

Astounding Creatures

Animals’ homes are amazing. Different animals work hard to build different types of homes.  Three examples of animals’ astonishing homes are made by beavers, swiftlets, and bees.

Beaver’s homes, called lodges, are really amazing.  They build at night so they can be safe from predators, who would hunt them in the day.  To construct their homes they use their teeth and tails. They use their teeth to chop down wood. They use their tails to put mud on sticks to make them stick together. They stack branches in the water so they make a little dry spot. Finally, they make an underwater entrance so no predators can sneak in. Beavers are very smart!

The swiftlet’s nest is tasty to some people. A swiftlet, which is a type of bird, crafts its nest in caves. The males spit clear saliva. With their tongues, they put it into the shape of the nests on the cave wall. Next, the males and females both put more spit on the wall to make the nests. It quickly hardens and looks like a half bowl. Strangely, one pound of nests is 1,000 dollars each! Chefs in Asia make delicious soup out of the nests because it’s a delicacy to some people.

Honeybees work diligently together to make stupendous homes, which are called hives. They build hollow places that look like thousands of tiny rooms. The rooms are cells, and they are hexagon shaped. The bees build the rooms out of wax. To make the wax the bees hang on to each other and get hot. Weirdly, when the bees get hot they make wax instead of sweat.  The rooms are for storing honey and raising baby bees. Honeybees are breathtaking workers.

God made many different creative creatures who work hard to build their homes.