edHelper.com
Animal Themes
Fish
 Mudskippers

Mudskippers
Reading Level
     edHelper's suggested reading level:   grades 3 to 6
     Flesch-Kincaid grade level:   7.78

Vocabulary
     challenging words:    absorb, cling, extremely, gills, lays, mangrove, privilege, specialty, straighten, thrust, underside, ashore, underwater, mainly, lower, network
     content words:    Indian Oceans

Print Mudskippers
     Print Mudskippers  (font options, pick words for additional puzzles, and more)

Quickly Print - PDF format
     Quickly Print: PDF (2 columns per page)
     Quickly Print: PDF (full page)

Quickly Print - HTML format
     Quickly Print: HTML

Proofreading Activity
     Print a proofreading activity

Feedback on Mudskippers
     Leave your feedback on Mudskippers  (use this link if you found an error in the story)

Other Languages
     Spanish: Los Peces del Fango

Mudskippers   
1     Mudskippers are small (up to 12 inches in length) but extremely unusual. Though they may not be as ferocious as great white sharks, as big as ocean sunfish, as colorful as clown fish, or as speedy as tuna, they possess one forte that none of these fishes have. That specialty is to stay out of water!
 
2     That's right! Mudskippers are often seen hopping across mud flats near mangrove swamps or river estuaries along the coasts of Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans. Their movement on land is so swift that they look more comfortable there than they do in water. Nevertheless, mudskippers are fish after all. Thus, they never stray far from water's edge and can only go on "aqua-free" up to a couple of days.
 
3     How can mudskippers survive without water? Well, it turns out that they have several unique adaptations that allow them to accomplish this otherwise unthinkable fishy task. To start with, mudskippers have different ways to breathe depending on where they are. If underwater, they use their gills to absorb dissolved oxygen as most fishes do. But before they get ready to go ashore, they enlarge their gill chambers and fill them with water. Once on land, they rely on these special "oxygen tanks" to supply their blood with oxygen. Alternatively, they can also breathe through their moist skin that contains a complex network of blood capillaries. To keep their outfit wet at all times, mudskippers often roll in puddles or have their tails immersed -- a habit that misled earlier scientists to conclude that mudskippers used their tails to breathe.

Paragraphs 4 to 8:
For the complete story with questions: click here for printable
Copyright © 2009 edHelper