Terry Timmerman, age 10, of Newport News, Virginia, for his question:

 Is it true that some animals never drink water?

All living cells need a quota of water to carry on their chemical activities. But not all animals gulp down a drink every day. And a few species never take a sip of water throughout their entire lives. The manage to extract some of their supplies from the food they eat. And it so happens that animals also manufacture water as by products of certain chemical processes inside their bodies.

A shaggy skunk dips his pointed nose in his favorite stream for a drink of water. Nearby, a spectacled raccoon arrives to soak his food, rinse his paws    and take a drink. When twilight falls, most animals forget their quarrels and come down to fill up at the neighborhood water hole. But some species live in arid regions, where water holes do not exist and the year is a long drought sprinkled with a few showers. Some of these desert animals never take a long, cool drink of water.

Two of these non drinkers live in our southwestern deserts. One is the kangaroo rat who travels by leaps and bounds. He uses his long, strong hind legs to jump along in leaps of six to eight feet, His body is eight inches long, plus an eight inch tail with a tuft at the end. The kangaroo rat shares his arid territory with another non¬drinker    the kangaroo mouse. This small cousin has a three inch body and a four inch tail. He too is a champion leaper. So far as we know, these small desert dwellers can live their whole lives without taking a sip of water. Yet they must have a constant supply of water to keep going.

Their bodies extract some of their supplies from grasses and other plants. .Many desert plants are succulents that store enough water in their cells to last from one shower to the next. But the kangaroo mouse and the kangaroo rat have still another way to get water from the food they eat. Their bodies actually manufacture water from oxygen in the air and hydrogen in the tough seeds of their diets. If they take care, they can manage without drinking water. So they stay out of the drying sunshine, deep in their underground burrows, and come out to dine in the cool evening.

The desert tortoise has his own way of coping with his arid world. There is little or no drinking water around. But the desert cactuses on his menu contain lots of water. His body extracts this water. What's more, he has two built in water bags under his shell. When times are good, he fills them with a pint of extra water, enough to last for quite a while.

Certain beetles and many other insects rarely if ever drink water. Their bodies extract the moisture they need from ants, plants and other assorted items on their menus. A soggy snail, you would think, needs a lot of water to stay moist. But a certain snail who lives in Death Valley never sips a drink. He too extracts his moisture from tender greenery. However, these plants flourish only for a short while in the early, early spring. For the rest of the year, this non drinking snal finds a shady crevice, tucks himself into his shell, seals his door and sinks into a long, deep sleep.