Reading lesson: Animal Winners

People use both camels and elephants for transport, but camels can run at 40 miles per hour while an elephant’s top speed is 15 miles per hour. Of course, they live in different habitats – elephants prefer grassland while camels live in the desert.

Lions and tigers are both big cats, but there are several differences between them. Tigers are forest animals while lions live in grassland. Tigers live alone while lions live in groups. There is not much difference in size between them, but adult tigers weigh 487 pounds while adult lions weigh 400 pounds.

Everyone hears about shark attacks on the news and in movies. People around the world worry about sharks when they go swimming in the ocean. So, you may be surprised to know that sharks kill six people every year, more or less, while snakes kill around 100,000 people. You can relax at the beach! (But not in the desert…)

The big question is, which animals are intelligent? It’s difficult to give an answer because there are many ways to be intelligent. If we think about how different animals remember events from the past, scientists believe that dolphins have a better memory than chimps. However, dogs are better at understanding human language than dolphins.