The word «vegetarian» was coined in about 1840 to mean people who lived without killing for food, either for moral or health reasons, or both. But the practice is much older than that. Greek philosophers recommended vegetarianism and famous people who have practiced it in the past include Leonardo da Vinci, Tolstoy and Voltaire, Milton, Newton and Bernard Show.
Men’s body is more like those of fruit-eating animals. For millions of years man must have lived on fruit, nuts and leaves and so developed a digestive system. Cancer, tuberculosis and heart disease are certainly more common in meat-eating communities.
Man may have started eating the flesh of animals during the Ice Age when most of the vegetation was destroyed.
A diet of vegetables, fruit, grains and nuts together with a few diary products can give us all the vitamins and minerals we need.
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Sea cucumber is not a plant but an animal. About 1,000 species have been described, which vary in size from only 3 cm to more than 1 m in length.
Sea cucumbers live in all of the oceans, being found in waters up to 200 m in depth. Most of them are colored black, brown, or olive-green, although tropical species may be reddish, orange, or violet. Sea cucumbers eat small invertebrates, algae, bacteria, and organic detritus.
In most species the process of fertilization takes place outside of the body. The fertilized eggs develop into free-living larvae that are dispersed with water currents.
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Bees are four-winged stinging social insects producing wax and honey. They live all over the world except Antarctica. There are more than 20,000 species, or types, of bee. The best-known kinds are honeybees and bumblebees. Like all insects, bees have six legs. They have two pairs of wings and five eyes. They also have mouth parts that act like a long tongue.
We can distinguish among them queens, workers and drones.
Some people are afraid of bees, for they think that the bees will sting them, but unless a bee is frightened it does not sting. So the bee flying from flower to flower to collect honey and pollen is not dangerous.
There are thousands of bees in a hive, but only one queen, who spends all her time laying eggs. The queen bee is the biggest bee in the hive.
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In many myths, the egg is a symbol of the universe, in Ancient Greek mythology Helen of Troy hatched from the egg, death of Koshchey the Immortal was hidden in an egg. Anyway, the egg is associated with the birth of new life.
Let’s look at the most unusual eggs.

Shark eggs

Eggs of these menacing sea creatures have a very strange shape. It is also called a mermaid’s purse or devil’s purse. The egg is in a thin capsule which is filled with collagen. Shark eggs are usually as large as a human palm. But there is a fixed record of 2 meters. The shark leaves the eggs at the bottom. It happens that there are several sharks in the same egg and the strongest eats the others.
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Millions of people have died in the two World Wars — but millions of animals have too.
More than eight million horses died in the First World War alone. They carried men to war, delivered ammunition and equipment.
Thousands of pigeons were used as carriers during the First and Second World Wars. They delivered important messages and also worked as ‘photographers.’ Flying at a mile a minute, these brave birds saved countless lives.
Mules were used for transport in the impenetrable Burmese jungle. Even camels and elephants took part in battles.
Dogs served in both World Wars. They carried secret messages, laid telegraph wires, sniffed out mines, dug out bomb victims and even made parachute jumps! During the Blitz, dogs used to wake up their owners and take them to the shelters when they heard the sirens.
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Ostrich is the largest living bird in the world. It is about 8 feet tall (2.4 meters) and may weigh as much as 345 pounds. It has wings but can’t fly. Male ostriches are mostly black, with white feathers on the wings and tail. The females are mostly brown.
Ostriches use their wings to help them balance when they run.
Ostrich can run up to 45 miles (72 kilometers) per hour. Just one of an ostrich’s stride can be 3 or even 5 metres long – that’s longer than many rooms! So it is not just the biggest but also the fastest bird on the ground! It runs to keep away from the enemies.
People sometimes say that ostriches bury their heads in the sand when they sense danger. But this isn’t true. You just can’t see their heads when ostriches are lying down.
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Spanish explorers saw a funny little animal with a hard shell on the outside of its body in America. They named it the armadillo, which means a ‘little armoured thing.’
These animals are mammals, closely related to the sloth and the anteater. But neither the sloth nor the anteater has the ability to grow bony outer armour.
The armadillo is the only mammal which can grow and wear its own protective bone plates that are called scutes! Their babies have soft shells, like human fingernails, but as they grow older the shells get harder.
Armadillos mostly eat insects. They catch bugs using their long, sticky tongues. They also use strong claws to open and destroy anthills. They can sniff out bugs and worms hiding in the ground and dig them out.
The animals dig burrows into the ground, usually under a tree root. They filled their burrows with leaves to make a soft bed.
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