Habitats
Do you need a place to live, food, water, and space to run and play? Well, if so, you
need a habitat! Other living things need habitats, too. An animal’s habitat is where it
lives. Habitats provide water, food, shelter, and space.
The Earth is covered with many different kinds of habitats. Some of these include
oceans, streams, ponds, marshes, deserts, grasslands, and forests. Most animals are able
to survive in only one kind of habitat. Let’s investigate frogs and butterflies and how
they interact with their habitats throughout their lives.
Frogs and their habitat
Frogs require a very special kind of habitat. This is because they
spend part of their lives in water and part on dry land. Frogs start out
as eggs that hatch into tiny “tadpoles” or “polliwogs.” In their tadpole
stage, frogs live in watery habitats. They even
have gills like fish so that they can breathe
under water. Over a period of weeks, tadpoles slowly grow legs,
lose their tails, develop lungs, and spend most of their time on
dry land. Now they will need a habitat that has insects for food,
and streams or marshes so they can bury themselves in the soft
mud to survive the cold temperatures.
Butterflies and their habitat
Butterflies also need a special kind of habitat to
survive. A successful butterfly habitat has plants
that meet a butterfly's needs during all four stages
of its life: egg, caterpillar, pupa, and adult. Female
butterflies lay their eggs only on plants that will
eventually become a food for their young. When
the eggs hatch, tiny worm-like creatures emerge
and get to work immediately devouring the
leaves and flowers around it. This is the
caterpillar stage where the young eat almost constantly. As they grow, caterpillars shed
their skin several times until eventually they enter the pupa stage. During this stage, the
caterpillar spins a cocoon of silk around its body and attaches itself to a nearby plant. It
is during the pupa stage that caterpillars gradually change into adult butterflies. After
two or three weeks, butterflies emerge from their cocoons and fly off in search of a
habitat that has the kind of plants their young will need for food.