Sounds of a hot summer afternoon in the country would certainly include the loud, constant, monotonous calls of the cicadas. Cicadas are perhaps the noisiest of all the insects. Actually these penetrating calls are the mating calls of the males; most females are silent. Since the female does not have a hearing organ, scientists think she must receive the sound vibrations of the male’s call. The male cicada makes his call by vibrating a membrane on a kind of sound box located on his thorax, that part of his body between his head and abdomen.
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The most famous tortoises, as well as the largest, are those found in the Galapagos Islands. Individuals among these giant land tortoises have weighed four and five hundred pounds. At one time there were great numbers of land tortoises living on the volcanic Galapagos. However during the whaling days in the South Pacific men discovered that they could be used for meat. Thousands of them were packed aboard whaling vessels and killed for food. The tortoises could go for long periods without food and water. They were slaughtered as needed to provide the crew members with fresh meat. After whaling had stopped, because of the discovery of petroleum, fishermen still continued to kill large numbers of these turtles for the oil that could be secured from their bodies.
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Capybaras are the largest living rodents. When they are full grown they are about three feet long and weigh as much as one hundred pounds. They look like very large guinea pigs and are indeed closely related to them. Capybaras live in Panama and South America. They are almost always found near streams or rivers. They eat aquatic plants as well as grasses.
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Three are two kinds of tree sloths, the two- toed and the three-toed. Both are found in Central and South America. They were given the name sloth because of their very slow, sluggish movements. Unless they are disturbed, sloths spend three-quarters of the day sleeping. Normally they sleep hanging from the branch of a tree, holding on with their strong claws. The rest of the time they spend eating the leaves and buds of trees. Even their eating is done in the slowest of slow motion.
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Quite different from the uakari is the capuchin monkey, which, of the many New World kinds, is perhaps the most common, most captured, and most captivating to human audiences. The capuchin is also the most intelligent of the platyrrhini, with a brain that is highly developed and large in proportion to the size of the animal itself. This undoubtedly accounts for the capuchin’s often being seen as an organ grinder’s playful little assistant, a sight that once was common in Europe, and to a lesser degree in North and South America.
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