Super Senses Chapter 1 Class 5th EVS Summary Notes

You have already read about the Question Answers of the Chapter Super Senses in my previous post. This post is about Super Senses Chapter 1 Class 5th EVS Summary Notes. I am providing study notes for students of JKBOSE and NCERT in this post.

Introduction

The chapter is about senses and sense organs that animals possess. Sense organs are vital organs of body of an organism because they help us sense light, sound, smell, taste, and feel.

Super Senses Chapter 1 Class 5th EVS Summary Notes

What are Super Senses?

The senses which help us to see, hear, smell, taste and feel something are termed as super senses or simply senses.

There are five super senses and so there are five sense organs. These are eyes, ears, nose, tongue and skin.

Like human beings, animals do have different senses. They can see, hear, taste smell and feel. Some animals can see their prey from a far away. There are animals which can hear even the faintest sound while there are several others which can sense other organism by their smell. Here we will discuss about the senses of various animals one by one.

Ants have powerful smelling sense

Ants have strong sense of smell than any other insect. Though they have a pair of compound eyes on their head but their eyesight is poor. The main sense organs in ants is the pair of antennae.

• Ants use antennae to smell, touch and communicate with other members of the group. It is the smelling sense of the ants which determine that the other ant was part of their group or not.
• Ants leave a chemical (smell) on the ground while moving. The smell of chemical is used by other ants for finding the way.
• Ants move in a line by sensing the smell of the leading ant. If incase their path is blocked, ants still try move in a straight line.
• Some male insects like silkworm find their far away female partner by their smell.

How Do Mosquitoes Find Us?

Like ants, mosquito also has a pair of antennae as their sensory organs. They find us by the smell and heat of our body.

• Senses smell of our body.
• Senses the smell of sole of our feet.
• Senses the heat of our body.

Dogs and their Smelling Sense

Dogs do have strong sense of smelling. They mark out their own area on the road by their urine. Dogs can also find out if another dog has entered its area by smelling its urine and latrine. The smelling sense of dogs is utilized by human beings in following manner:

• For catching thieves and criminals.
• For detecting suspicious items like explosives etc.
• For locating the missing items.

Is smell Good or Bad for Everyone in Same way.

Some smells are generally bad for most of the people, but mostly our sense of smell depends on how feel about it. If we feel bad about the particular smell, then it is bad for us but if we feel good then it is good for us.

For instance, in this picture Saima covered her nose with dupatta while cleaning the potty of her sister’s son Atif. But she did not have to close her nose while cleaning the potty of her own daughter. It is because she feels that his potty is bad so it smells bad for her.

Eyes in Birds

We often see that most birds have their eyes on the either side of their head. Such type of eyes can focus on two different things at a time. But, when they look straight, both their eyes focus on the same object.

In human beings, we have our eyes on the front side of the head, so we cannot focus on two different objects at the same time. Owl also has its eyes in front of its head.

• The eyes in most of the birds are fixed and cannot move, so they have to turn their heads to look around.
• There are some birds which have stronger eyesight than human beings. Birds like kites, eagles, vultures etc. can see four times farther than human beings. It is due this reason they can see their prey while flying high in the sky.
• These birds (kites, eagles, vultures etc.) can see from eight metres what we can see from two metres.

Do Animals See Colours.

Animals cannot see as many colours as we human beings do.

• The animals which are awake in daytime (diurnal) can see some colours.
• The animals which are active during the night (nocturnal) can only two colours, black and white.
• Some birds and bees have super color vision and see colors that humans don’t see.

• The animals like dogs, cats, mice, rats and rabbits have very poor color vision.
• The animals like monkeys, ground squirrels, birds, insects, and many fish have good color vision.
• Bees and butterflies can see colors that human beings can’t see.

Ears in Animals.

We cannot see the ears in birds easily because they are small holes covered with feathers.

• The ears of most of the animals can be easily seen. The ears of animals like cat, dog, cow, elephant, horse, camel, rabbit, horse and monkey can be easily seen.
• There ears of animals like cow, horse, camel, dog, elephant, buffalo, and ass etc. are bigger in size than ours.
• Larger ears can collect more sound waves and so the animals having bigger ears have strong hearing power.
• Snakes do not have external ears. They can only feel the vibrations on the ground.

Sound Used to Send Messages

• Langur warns others of the danger from Tiger or Leopard by climbing up high on a tree and making special warning call.
• Birds also raise alarms to warn about the danger. There are some birds which produce different sounds for different kinds of dangers. For example, there is different warning call for enemy coming from the sky and enemy on the ground.
• Some animals start behaving in a different manner when natural disaster like an earthquake or a storm is about to come.
• Dolphins also uses different sounds to send messages to each other.

• Scientists believe that there are many animals that have special language of their own.

Sleeping – Walking

We sleep during night and remain awake during the daytime. There are some animals which go into a long sleep in certain seasons. This long seep is called hibernation. During this period, they are not seen for many months. E.g. Frogs, lizards etc. 

• Sloth spends almost 17 hours a day sleeping while hanging upside down on a tree branch.
• It eats the leaves of the same trees on which it lives.
• It moves to other tree after eating most of the leaves of the previous tree.
• The life span of sloth is about 40 years and, in that time, it moves around about only eight trees.
• It comes down the tree once a week to relieve itself.

Here is sleeping time of different animals.

From this picture we conclude:

• A cow sleeps fours hour a day.
• A python sleeps eighteen hours a day.
• A giraffe sleeps 2 hours a day.
• A cat sleeps 12 hours a day.

Tiger and its senses

Tiger is one of the most alert animals but still is in danger of extinction.

The few peculiar things about a tiger includes:

• It can see six times better than human beings during the night.
• The sense of hearing of tiger is so sharp that it can differentiate the sound of an animal walking on grass and rustling of leaves.
• Tiger can move its ears in all directions and this helps it to catch the sound from all directions.
• The whiskers of tiger are so sensitive that they can sense the vibration of air. They help the tiger move in the dark and finding its prey.
• Tiger mark its area with its urine and it can at once come to know if there is another tiger in its area by the smell of urine.
• Tiger make different sounds for different purposes like when it is angry or when calling a Tigress.
• The roar of a tiger can be heard up to 3 kilometers.

Animals are in Danger

There are so many threats for animals. The main threats which are posing serious threats to the existence of some animals includes hunting (poaching), and deforestation.

• Elephants are killed for their tusks.
• Rhinoceros are killed for their horns.
• Tigers, crocodiles and snakes are killed for skin.
• Musk deer is killed for its musk which is used in making scents.

The people who kill the wild animals for their monetary benefits are termed as Poachers or hunters.

It is due to them; the number of tigers and many other animals is decreasing in our country day by day. Some are at the verge of getting disappeared very soon.

How to Protect Animals.

To protect the animals from disappearing government has set up some forests as protected areas where hunting of an animal is prohibited and illegal.

• Jim Corbett National Park in Uttarakhand and Ghana National Park in Bharatpur district in Rajasthan are two such areas.
• In our Jammu Kashmir there are several national parks, Dachigam National Park, Kishtwar National Park, and Hemis National Park are few of them.

That’s all about Super Senses Chapter 1 Class 5th EVS Summary Notes. Hope it has solved your query. Do share your views in the comment section below.