How do plants and animals sense touch and vibrations?

Right then children. Today we’re going to be looking at plants and animals and the different ways they use touch and vibrations.

You hear that chirping sound? That’s a cricket. Now crickets are very sensitive to vibrations and use them to sense danger. If they stop chirping that usually means something’s wrong.

Looks like everything’s just fine over here!

Ah, the Venus flytrap… a flesh-eating plant that senses touch through little hair-like spikes on these unusual leaves. If an insect is foolish enough to trigger the spikes, the leaves close like a mouth and it gets gobbled.

Better not hang around here!

Vibrations travel faster through water than they do through air, so fish can easily sense movement on a lake.

They feel vibrations through special sense receptors along what’s called their lateral line.

Are you determined to become a fish supper? Come along now…

Ah, an elephant!

Elephants use vibrations to communicate over great distances by stomping the ground.

The vibrations travel through the ground and the elephants sense each other’s messages through their feet.

That means “stand back.”

Oh dear… Right then, come along children.

Children?

Well, flies will be flies I suppose…