NCERT Solutions for Class 5th English Chapter 5 Choose any two and find out a few facts about them — Let us Explore

Book page 64 Updated on2026-09-19

Q1.

Choose any two of the below and find out a few facts about them. Puffer fish · Jellyfish · Seahorse · Starfish · Octopus · Catfish

Answer

Six sea creatures are pictured on page 64. Pick any two and find out about them.

How to do it:

Pick the two whose pictures you like best. Curiosity makes the work easy.
Look them up in your school library, in an encyclopaedia, in a science magazine, or ask your teacher.
For each one, answer these five questions — the same five for both, so you can compare them.
- Where does it live?
- What does it look like?
- What does it eat?
- How does it move?
- What is the one surprising thing about it?
Write five or six sentences on each. Draw a small picture beside each one.
Write down where you found your facts. That is what makes it a real finding-out, not a guess.

What a good answer needs: facts, not opinions; the same five questions answered for both creatures; your own sentences, not copied ones; and one line at the end saying which of the two you found more interesting and why.

Sample answer — Puffer fish and Seahorse:

The puffer fish. The puffer fish lives in warm seas, and a few kinds live in rivers in India. It is a small, round fish with a big head and large eyes. It eats snails, shellfish and small sea creatures, which it cracks open with its hard, beak-like teeth. It is a slow, clumsy swimmer, so it cannot escape by racing away. Here is the surprising part: when it is frightened, it gulps in water and swells up into a spiky ball, several times its usual size. No hunter wants to swallow a spiky ball, so the puffer fish is left alone.

The seahorse. The seahorse lives in shallow, warm sea water, among seagrass and coral. It is a small fish, but it does not look like one — it has a head like a tiny horse and it swims upright, standing on its tail. It eats very small shrimp and other tiny sea animals, and it eats almost all day long because it has no stomach to store food in. It swims very slowly, waving a small fin on its back, and it holds on to seagrass with its curly tail so that the current does not carry it away. The surprising part is this: it is the father seahorse who carries the eggs. The mother lays them into a pouch on his front, and he keeps them there until the babies are born.

Of the two, I found the seahorse more interesting, because it is the only fish I know of in which the father, and not the mother, carries the babies.

Q1.

Puffer fish — find out a few facts.

Answer

Question	Answer
Where does it live?	In warm seas around the world; a few kinds live in fresh water, including some Indian rivers.
What does it look like?	Small and round, with a big head, large eyes and a rough, spiny skin. No scales.
What does it eat?	Snails, shellfish and small sea creatures, cracked open with hard, beak-like front teeth.
How does it move?	Slowly, paddling with its small fins. It is one of the clumsiest swimmers in the sea.
The surprising thing	When it is frightened it gulps in water and swells into a spiky ball, far bigger than its usual size.

Why it puffs up: A slow swimmer cannot run away, so it has to make itself impossible to swallow instead. A round, prickly ball simply will not go down a bigger fish’s throat. Most puffer fish are also poisonous, so the spines are a warning as well.

Q2.

Jellyfish — find out a few facts.

Answer

Question	Answer
Where does it live?	In seas all over the world, from warm shallow water to the cold deep sea.
What does it look like?	A soft, see-through umbrella with long trailing tentacles hanging beneath it. It has no bones, no heart and no brain. Its body is about 95 parts water out of every 100.
What does it eat?	Tiny floating animals and small fish, caught by the tentacles.
How does it move?	It squeezes its umbrella shut and opens it again, which pushes it along. Mostly it just drifts with the current.
The surprising thing	Jellyfish were in the sea long before the dinosaurs walked on land — for more than 500 million years.

Careful: A jellyfish stings with its tentacles, and the sting hurts even after the jellyfish is dead. Never touch one washed up on a beach.

Q3.

Seahorse — find out a few facts.

Answer

Question	Answer
Where does it live?	In shallow, warm sea water, among seagrass and coral. They are found along India’s coasts.
What does it look like?	A small fish with a head like a horse, a curled tail and a body covered in bony rings instead of scales. It swims upright.
What does it eat?	Very small shrimp and other tiny sea animals, sucked in through its long snout.
How does it move?	Very slowly, by fluttering a small fin on its back. It anchors itself by curling its tail around a stem of seagrass.
The surprising thing	The father carries the eggs in a pouch on his front and the babies are born from him.

Why it eats all day: A seahorse has no stomach, so food passes through it very quickly and it can never store a meal. It has to keep eating almost the whole day just to stay well.

Q4.

Starfish — find out a few facts.

Answer

Question	Answer
Where does it live?	On the sea floor, in rock pools and among coral, in every ocean.
What does it look like?	A flat star, usually with five arms. Some kinds have many more. It has no brain and no blood.
What does it eat?	Shellfish such as mussels and clams, and other slow sea creatures.
How does it move?	On hundreds of tiny tube feet under its arms, which grip and let go, one after another. It moves very slowly indeed.
The surprising thing	If it loses an arm, it can grow a new one. It also has a simple eye at the tip of every arm.

A better name: Scientists prefer to call it a sea star, because it is not a fish at all. It has no gills, no fins and no backbone.

Q5.

Octopus — find out a few facts.

Answer

Question	Answer
Where does it live?	On the sea floor, hiding in rocky cracks and caves, in warm and cold seas alike.
What does it look like?	A soft, bag-like body with a big head and eight arms, each lined with suckers. It has no bones at all. It has three hearts, and its blood is blue.
What does it eat?	Crabs, shellfish and small fish, held by the arms and opened with a hard beak.
How does it move?	It crawls over rocks on its arms, or shoots backwards by squirting a jet of water out of its body.
The surprising thing	It is very clever — it can open a screw-top jar to get at the food inside, and it can change the colour and even the roughness of its skin to match a rock in a second.

Why having no bones is useful: The only hard part of an octopus is its beak. Everything else is soft, so it can squeeze its whole body through a hole no bigger than its beak. That is how a large octopus escapes into a tiny crack when a shark comes.

Its escape trick: When it is frightened it squirts a cloud of black ink into the water. While the hunter is peering through the dark cloud, the octopus is already gone.

Q6.

Catfish — find out a few facts.

Answer

Question	Answer
Where does it live?	In rivers, ponds, lakes and tanks. India has many kinds — magur, singhi and pangas are all catfish. Some kinds live in the sea.
What does it look like?	A long fish with a wide, flat head, a large mouth, and long whiskers around it. Most catfish have no scales — their skin is smooth or bony-plated.
What does it eat?	Almost anything on the river bed — worms, insects, small fish, plants and rotting bits.
How does it move?	It swims close to the bottom, often in muddy water, using its tail and fins.
The surprising thing	The whiskers are not for show. They are called barbels, and the fish feels and tastes its food with them, so it can find a meal in water too muddy to see through.

Why the whiskers matter: A catfish lives at the bottom of a muddy river, where eyes are almost useless. Its barbels do the work eyes would do — exactly the same problem the Ganges river dolphin solves with sound. Two animals, one muddy river, two clever answers.

Be careful: Some catfish, such as the magur, have sharp spines in their fins. Fishermen handle them carefully. Some kinds can also gulp air and stay alive for hours out of water.

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