A Day in the Life of a Poo, a Gnu and You

This wacky and wonderful fact book is divided into three sections: Human Body, Animals, and Earth and Science. Here are some facts from each section:

Human Body

Tongue- The tongue can recognise five basic tastes- sweet, salty, bitter, sour and savoury.

Intestines- There are two intestines, the large intestine and the small intestine. The small intestine is actually longer! It is only called 'small' because it is narrower than the large intestine.

Stomach- The stomach has a special muscle at each end called a 'sphincter'. They stop food escaping so that the stomach acids can break it down. If something irritates its lining, the diaphragm muscles contract, forcing food out.

Animals

Spider- Pretty much all spiders have different webs. Diving bell spiders spend their entire lives underwater in a bubble of air trapped by their silk. Web-casting spiders spin webs hat they hold in their front two legs to scoop flies and other insects out of the air.

Dung beetle- They actually EAT poo! They will also collect a big ball and push it around with them. When they find a mate, the female will lay her eggs in the ball and bury the ball underground for the babies to itch and chomp their way through the ball.

Sea jelly- These simple creatures have no brain, heart or lungs. They are actually 95% water, roughly equal to a cucumber. They eat and poo through the same hole!

Earth and Science

Venus flytrap- Yum! This plant has lots of 'trigger hairs'- bump one and guess what happens... Nothing! But touch a second hair within 20 seconds and chomp! The bug is dinner.

Banana- It's bananas here! Bananas grow in bunches, and are chopped off the tree and shipped around the world when still unripe, but are soon ripened by the gas, ethylene. They're also - ever so slightly - radioactive.

Coconut- Coconuts sprout in the ground and grow into new trees. After about five years, some smooth green fruits form. Within a year, they'll be brown and will fall off the tree. Hope you're wearing a crash helmet- they are very hard! They might end up in food or even in a fairground, being hit by a ball!