Animal Adaptations
By Miss Hayes
2009
Adaptations, Habitats, Biomes
Essential Questions

Read through the following presentation with your group and teacher. See
if you can answer these questions by the end 

What is an adaptation?

What is the difference between physical and behavioral adaptations?

What is a biome? What are the major biomes?

What kinds of animals belong to each biome?
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How do biomes affect animal adaptations?

How to animal adaptations change over time?
What is an adaptation?
 How a person or animal changes or “adapts” to survive.
 We change how we dress. When the weather gets cold
we wear coats and long pants. Similar to this animals
must adapt to changes in their surroundings.
 What do all animals need?
 Air (oxygen), water, shelter, food
 What animals do or how they behave to get these needs
is called an adaptation.
Physical and Behavioral

Animals adapt in many ways. There are two types of adaptations. Physical and
Behavioral.

Physical is how an animal looks. It is it’s physical features such as beaks, tails,
claws, and much more. A skunk has a physical adaptation that protects it from
harm. Do you know what it is?

Behavioral is how an animal behaves. If your teacher says you had great
behavior, he or she means you acted very well.


Behavioral Adaptations are how an animal acts to help it survive in its’ habitat.
There are two types of Behavioral Adaptations
Taught and Instinctive.
Taught is something like talking to humans. Someone had to teach you how to talk.
Instinctive is like a baby crying. Babies know how to do it from birth. It does
not have to be taught.

We will explore some examples of physical and behavioral adaptations now.
Physical Adaptations

Physical adaptations may be how many fingers an animal has, how thick its fur it, or
how it changes to attract a mate.

Physical adaptations do not form overnight. They can take hundreds of years to
transform and usually change because of the climate.

With today’s constantly changing environment, animals habitats or living places are
changing.

An animal has to readjust to that new surrounding or climate. If they can’t the
animal dies.

You will learn more about how climate changes and then with time it forces animals
to change and adapt later in this lesson.
Adaptations- Physical
 Mimicry

The Viceroy Butterfly mimics the
Monarch. The Monarch is poisonous
and birds know not to eat it. The
Viceroy is not poisonous but because it
looks similar, many animals will not eat
it. What other animals use mimicry?
 Camouflage

The chameleon’s light brown coloring
keeps it safe from harm. It matches the
trees and brush it lives in so predators
cannot see it. The chameleon only
changes color when in immediate
danger. What other animals use
camouflage?
Adaptations- Physical
Defense


The skunk uses a special musk to spray
when it feels it is facing danger.
Bombardier beetle- a beetle that has a
special defense feature. It mixes two
chemicals in its body and shoots the
chemicals mixed in its body from its
abdomen at predators for protection.
Behavioral Adaptations
Migration

This is when animals move from one
place to another in search of food or
to find a warmer place to live.
Hibernation/Estivation

When an animal goes in a dormant or
inactive state to avoid extremely cold
weather conditions. Brown bears
hibernate in the winter. Estivation is the
same as hibernation but is done by
animals trying to avoid very hot
conditions.
Behavioral Adaptation- Caring for an animals’
young
 Crèche

Crèche is the term used for how a
mother duck leads her ducklings as
she searches for food. In a crèche
one female leads the group of
ducklings and the other trails in the
back guarding them from danger.
This can be considered an adaptation
used to care for the young.

Spiders have many spider eggs at one
time; therefore they cannot all live in
the same area. As a special
adaptation and means of survival
young spiders find a pace to live by
ballooning. They raise their abdomen
or rear, spin a long strand of silk and
let the breeze carry them to a new
home.
Adaptations are everywhere!
 There are many more types of adaptations both physical
and behavioral. What other kinds of adaptations of
animals do you know?
 You will use the following WebQuest to find even more
adaptations!
 Now it’s time to learn about where these animals live and
how that affects their adaptations.
Biomes
There are six major types of biomes where all animals
could live and “adapt” to in order to survive.
Freshwater
-Includes wetlands, streams and rivers, ponds and lakes.
Animals that live here require low salt intake. Temperature of the water
changes drastically with the seasons.
(fish such as catfish, shrimp. ducks, turtles, snakes, birds)
Marine –
Cover about 75% of Earth’s surface. Marine includes oceans,
estuaries, and coral reef. High salt concentrations.
(mammals such as dolphins and whales, crabs, worms, octopuses)
Desert –Cover about 20% of Earth’s surface.
Few animals live in very hot
deserts because the desert offers little protections from the hot sun. Semiarid, coastal, coastal, and cold deserts contain more animals.
(rabbits, skunks, owls, snakes, jack rabbits, mice, coyotes, and badgers)
Biomes- Continued
Forest (Taiga)- There are three types. tropical, temperate, and boreal.
Tropical-near equator
(birds, bats, small mammals.)
Temperate-eastern North America, northeastern Asia, and western and central Europe
(squirrels, rabbits, skunks, birds, deer, mountain lion, bobcat, timber wolf, fox, and black bear.)
Boreal-short, moist summers, long cold winters
(hawks, small mammals, bats, lynx, bears)
Grassland– Two types savannah and temperate (includes prairies). Africa, India, South America.
(Savannah-giraffes, zebras, buffaloes, kangaroos, mice, moles, gophers, ground squirrels, snakes, worms,
termites, beetles, lions, leopards, hyenas, and elephants.)
(Temperate- gazelles, zebras, rhinoceroses, wild horses, lions, wolves, prairie dogs, jack rabbits, deer, mice,
coyotes, foxes, skunks, badgers, blackbirds, quails, sparrows, hawks, owls, snakes, grasshoppers, and
spiders)
Biomes- Continued
Tundra- Two types; Arctic and Alpine.
Arctic is coldest of all biomes. Tundra
means “treeless.” characterized by short growing seasons and reproduction seasons.
Arctic- Northern Hemisphere, North Pole
 (lemmings, caribou, arctic hares, squirrels, arctic foxes, wolves, polar bears, snow
buntings, falcons, loons, terns, snow birds, mosquitoes, flies, moths, grasshoppers,
black flies, salmon, and trout)
Alpine- very high mountaintops of Alaska and Washington.
 (marmots, mountain goats, sheep, elk, beetles, grasshoppers, butterflies)
How did you do?

What is an adaptation?

What is the difference between physical and behavioral adaptations?

What is a biome? What are the major biomes?

What kinds of animals belong to each biome?

How do biomes affect animal adaptations?

How to animal adaptations change over time?
Credits
 Biome pictures
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/exhibits/biomes/index.php