# How the Myna Ate the Sun - Source: StoryWeaver (storyweaver.org.in), CC BY, Pratham Books, StoryWeaver, CC BY 4.0 - Reading level: Grades 3 and 4 - Subjects: Stories, Food, Animals - Topics: food, gecko, animals, energy, hungry, myna - Length: 564 words, about 4 min - By: Labonie Roy - Original: - Page: - Open in Sprouts: It was a bright morning. The hungry myna hopped with excitement. Time to feast on her favourite food — the sun. The sun? But how? Isn’t it too big? Too hot? Tooooooo far away? The myna had a plan. It started with the plants, who drank up golden sunshine through their leaves. The sunlight, mixed with sweet morning air and cool water, made a delicious meal for the plants. For extra flavour, there were snacks in the soil. A prickly caterpillar crawled out of his egg. He was hungry enough to eat the whole plant! Leaf after leaf after leaf he gobbled, getting bigger and pricklier. The purple leaves were his favourite — bitter and juicy with a spicy twist. The caterpillar couldn’t eat another bite. He hid under a leaf and wrapped himself up. After much tossing and turning, he was ready to come out — as a moth! Nearby, the gecko licked her eyes clean to make sure she was seeing right. Those wings looked so soft! These days, moths find it hard to see the moon and stars at night. So, they gather around light bulbs instead. Hidden in the shadows, the gecko couldn’t wait any longer. Her long, sticky tongue flew out of her mouth and caught the moth. The wings melted in her mouth. The bushy antennae tickled her throat on the way down. Delicious! By morning, the gecko had tasted all kinds of wings — soft, chewy, and even some mouth-wateringly crisp ones. With each meal, she grew bigger and rounder. Too full to move, the gecko settled in for a nap. The myna’s beak dropped open. Those gecko toes looked SO crunchy! Crunchy toes soft wings juicy leaves and plenty of delicious sunshine The myna gobbled up the gecko with a snap of her beak. She saved the tail for last, which wiggled and squiggled delightfully in her stomach. The myna’s plan to eat the sun had worked! But she was still hungry... Behind her, the hungry cat’s whiskers quivered. Time to feast on his favourite food, the sun. **The Food Chain** Every time you take a bite of food, you are eating the sun! All living beings, including humans, need energy to grow. This energy comes to our bodies through food. Plants feed themselves by turning sunlight into food! They pass the sun’s energy on to animals, like the caterpillar who chomped up the plant’s leaves, or like us eating vegetables. Some animals also depend on other animals for energy, like the gecko who ate the moth, or us eating fish curry for dinner. This transfer of energy is called the food chain, and it begins with the sun. ![An example of a food web](https://sprout.rootsofreason.org/media/storyweaver-how-the-myna-ate-the-sun-3c10ca032c.jpg) Mango tree · Castor plant · Grasshopper · Cocoa Tussock Moth · Green Lynx Spider · House Gecko · Common Myna · Cat · Human Other animals are hungry, too! Spiders love to eat moths, just as cats love to eat geckos, grasshoppers eat plants and birds love to snack on caterpillars. When food chains get all tangled up, the result is a food web. Can you draw a food web from animals you see around you? But where does a food chain, or food web, end? When the last animal in a food chain reaches the end of its life, it becomes food for worms, mushrooms and tiny creatures like bacteria living in the soil. After they are done, plants get the leftovers. Nothing in nature is wasted! ## Picture credits - Labonie Roy, CC BY 4.0 () - Labonie Roy, CC BY 4.0 () - Labonie Roy, CC BY 4.0 () - Labonie Roy, CC BY 4.0 () - Labonie Roy, CC BY 4.0 () - Labonie Roy, CC BY 4.0 () - Labonie Roy, CC BY 4.0 () - Labonie Roy, CC BY 4.0 () - Labonie Roy, CC BY 4.0 () - Labonie Roy, CC BY 4.0 () - Labonie Roy, CC BY 4.0 () - Labonie Roy, CC BY 4.0 () - Labonie Roy, CC BY 4.0 () - Labonie Roy, CC BY 4.0 () - Labonie Roy, CC BY 4.0 () - Labonie Roy, CC BY 4.0 ()