Living Creatures: Exploring their Characteristics
Responding to stimuli
Learn how living things respond to what is happening around them.
You step on a sharp thorn while walking barefoot, or touch a hot cup of tea by mistake. What do you do? You pull your foot or hand away at once!
Anything or any event that makes a living being respond is called a stimulus (plural: stimuli). The thorn and the hot cup are stimuli; pulling away is your response. Feeling cold and putting on a jacket is a response too.
Plants respond to stimuli as well. The touch-me-not plant (also called mimosa, chhui-mui or lajjalu) folds its leaves when you touch it. The touch is the stimulus; folding is the response.
Some plants fold their leaves after sunset: leaves facing each other close together. You can see these 'sleeping leaves' on the amla (Indian gooseberry) tree. All living beings respond to stimuli.
Practise this lesson
Questions that get harder as you improve, a Tutor that helps without giving the answer away, and progress you can see. Free for every learner.
No account, no email address. Opens the real product.