En Español

All animals move. Big and small animals move. Fast and slow animals move too. They walk, run, crawl, fly, and swim. Some get around in surprising ways. Let’s see how. We will start with sky animals.

The sky is full of fliers. Bugs might be small, but they can really fly. The painted lady butterfly migrates from North Africa to Iceland. That’s 6,000 kilometers (4,000 miles)!

Birds fly too. Their bones are hollow. That makes them light enough to fly. Larger birds ride on air waves. They stay up by drifting.

Hummingbirds beat their wings fast. Some flap 80 times a second. They can even stay in one spot. That helps them get food from flowers.

Bats have wings also. Yet they are not birds. They have no feathers. They do not lay eggs.

Instead, bats give birth to babies. They give milk to their young. This means they are mammals. Bats are the only mammals that can truly fly. They do it very well.

To fly, bats flap their wings. Their wings are made of thin bones and skin. The bones are like fingers. Bats also have thumbs. Thumbs help bats with climbing.

Some animals fly without wings! Flying squirrels have big flaps of skin. They catch wind for gliding.

The paradise tree snake also takes to the air. It jumps from a tree. Next, it flattens its body. Then it moves side to side through the sky.

Some baby spiders make silk into parachutes. The wind then blows the parachutes, carrying the spiders to new places.

Sea creatures get around as well. Take rays, for example. Some people call them the birds of the sea. That’s because they have long fins. The fins act like wings.

Fish are shaped to speed through water. They also have a swim bladder. A fish fills up this body part with air. That helps the fish float up. Then it lets air out to sink.

Squid speed around by sucking water in. Then they press the water out. That shoots the animal forward.

Land animals run, jump, and walk. Most have legs for moving around. They use legs in different ways.

Kangaroos have big back legs. They use them to hop. They also have long tails. These help kangaroos balance as they hop. Some kangaroos can go 6 meters (20 feet) in one bounce.

Most land animals use four legs for walking. Think about horses. They can change their gait. An animal’s gait is its way of walking or running. Horses can walk, trot, or gallop.

There are still other ways to move. Look at snakes. They move without feet. They press muscles in their long bodies. That moves them forward.

Lizards called geckos can walk upside down. They use tiny hairs on their feet. The hairs work like Velcro. They hold the lizard up.

One kind of insect has hairy feet too. The hairs let it walk on water. Some lizards even run across water. They can go for 4.5 meters (15 feet) before falling in and swimming.

The trap-jaw ant moves in a very odd way. When danger is near, it snaps its mouth shut—fast. The force sends it through the air. The ant crashes to the ground. But no worries! The ant gets up again.

From ants to zebras, animals move in different ways. Yet they move for the same reasons. They get food. They escape from danger. They move to stay alive in a fast, wild world.

Article by Kirsten Weir. Top-of-page photo by Mitchell Funk/Getty Images. "On the Move" appears on pages 14-19 of our March 2007 issue.