14. Why are Some Animals Cold-Blooded and Some Animals Warm-Blooded? Why is There A Queen Bee? Is the Queen Bee bigger Than the Other Bees? Why Do Elephants Stomp their Feet and Stomp and Walk?

Full Episode description

Welcome to this week’s episode of Everything Under The Sun! 

This week we have four questions, the first is from Evey who lives in Australia, she would like to know why some animals are warm-blooded and some are cold-blooded? 

To answer her we have Katie Thomas, a biologist from The Natural History Museum in London!  She is studying how frogs see the word, so tells us all about frogs and other cold-blooded animals that get warmer when the sun is out, or cooler when it’s not sunny and sea creatures with anti-freeze in their bodies. 

Compare how their bodies work with how warm-blooded animals like your dog, a whale and us humans work! How to we keep our bodies at a constant temperature even when it’s boiling hot or freezing cold? What is the benefit to animals of being warm or cold-blooded? Have a listen to find out as well as the strange creatures that break the rules, like Opah fish who are as big as car tyres!

Our second and third questions are about queen bees! Arya would like to know why there is a queen bee? And Arthur would like to know if the queen bee is bigger than the other bees? Find out all about buzzing bees and their queen, from how bees make a queen bee by feeding her special food to what they do in the beehive. 

Our fourth question is from Ithaca, she would like to know why elephants stomp their feet and walk and stomp? Find out how elephants can hear through their feet and send messages through the ground from miles away. Imagine if you could do that – stomp your feet and send a message to your friend in her house miles away!

Plus hear who won this week’s copy of my new book Natural Wonders of the World with their buzzing bee impressions. For more info about the book, see here: www.mollyoldfield.com/naturalwonders

If you have a question you would like answered on the show just find an adult with a smartphone and ask them to record you using the voice memos app on an iphone or recording app that comes with other phones. Then tell me your name, your age, a bit about yourself, and ask me your question, and send it into me at molly@everythingunderthesun.co.uk

More info about sending in questions can be found here! https://www.mollyoldfield.com/podcast

Thank you! Have a lovely week and enjoy the show! 

With thanks to the Natural History Museum in London, Audio Networks, Tyler Simmons Dale, Ash Gardner and Billy Colours.

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