Wool


 
 
Concept Explanation
 

Wool

Wool: Wool is an animal fibre. It comes from the animals like sheep, goat, llama and alpaca. It is present as a thick coat of hair on the body of certain animals which keeps them warm. This body coat fine soft hair is called fleece. Air gets trapped in the space between the hair. Since air is a poor conductor of heat. So, the air trapped in hair shields the body from cold and keeps them warm in winter.  The hair close to our skin i.e. hair on our body and arms is soft and hair on our head is coarse hair. Like us, the hairy skin of sheep has two types of fibres that form its fleece (or wool):

  • The coarse beard hair and
  • The soft under-hair, found close to the skin.
  • The fine soft under hair provide the fibre for making wool. To obtain breeds of sheep that possess only fine under hair, their parents are carefully chosen. This process of selecting parents for obtaining special characteristics in their offspring such as soft under hair in sheep is termed as ‘selective breeding.’ Such sheep give not only better quality of wool but the yield per sheep is also higher. Australia is the biggest grower of wool in the world.

    Characteristics of Wool:

  • It is light, soft, thick, durable, elastic and wrinkle resistant.
  • Wool fibres are complex animal proteins. If wool samples are burnt, they emit strong smell of burning hair.
  • It traps air and so it has insulating properties because air is a bad conductor of heat. Thus wool has the property of retaining heat.
  • Wool is reusable and biodegradable.
  • Bharat Merion a breed of sheep was evolved at the central sheep and wool research institute, Rajasthan. This breed yield very fine wool used for clothing.
  • Sheep wool has an incredible natural protection from Ultra violet rays.
  • Sample Questions
    (More Questions for each concept available in Login)
    Question : 1

    Which of these is the leading producer of wool today?

    Right Option : C
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    Explanation
    Question : 2

    Woolen fibre is ______________

    Right Option : D
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    Explanation
    Question : 3

    Complete the correlation :

    Silk worm : Cocoon, Wool : ___________

    Right Option : B
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    Explanation
     
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