Q1.
Which is our national aquatic animal?
Answer
The Ganges river dolphin. The book says: “It’s the Ganges river dolphin! It cannot see well, so it uses sounds to find its way in the water!”
Aquatic means living in water. So our national aquatic animal is the water animal chosen to stand for our country, just as the tiger is our national animal and the peacock our national bird.
- It lives in the Ganga, the Brahmaputra and their branches — in fresh river water, not in the sea.
- Its eyes are tiny and it can hardly see. The river water is so muddy that eyes would be of little use anyway.
- It makes clicking sounds. The sounds travel out, hit a fish or a rock, and bounce back. From the echo the dolphin knows what is ahead and how far away it is.
- In many villages along the river it is called susu, after the puffing sound it makes when it comes up to breathe.
- Like all dolphins it breathes air, so it must come to the surface again and again.
How “seeing with sound” works: Stand in a big empty hall and clap once. You hear the clap come back to you a moment later. The dolphin does this all day long, with hundreds of tiny clicks, and its ears are so good that from the echoes it can tell a fish from a stone. A blind animal in muddy water still knows exactly where everything is.
Why it is in danger: River dolphins are harmed by dirty water, by fishing nets they get caught in, and by rivers that dry up. Keeping our rivers clean is the way to keep them alive — which is the whole point of Unit 3 of this book, Water.