Animal Behavioural Adaptations
Learning Intention
• I can explain the survival value of
behaviour adaptations in animals.
Success Criteria
• Carry out a practical to explain why
penguins huddle together as an example
of behavioural adaptation.
• Animals have certain adaptations to
allow them to survive in the wild.
• You don’t wear shorts and bathing suits
if its snowing outside! What would you
wear?
• If you were having a snowball fight what
would you do?
• What you wear and the way you behave
are all adaptations.
• There are 2 types of adaptations.
Behavioural Adaptations
• These allow animals to respond to life
needs.
• Behavioural adaptations can be
INNATE (Instinctive, inborn).
• These happen naturally and don’t have
to be learned.
• They can also be LEARNED and these
must be taught.
Innate Behaviour - definition
When a behaviour is essentially the
same in all members of a species, the
behaviour is call innate or inborn
behaviour.
It is genetically controlled.
Here is a few examples of innate animal
behaviours
Behaviour
Activity performed in response to stimulus
Innate Behaviours
Behaviours that are essentially the same in all members of a species
Rhythmic behaviours
Eg. Eating, sleeping,
seasonal migration
Communication behaviours
Reproductive behaviours
Dominance behaviours
Territoriality
Competitive behaviours
Social interactions
What adaptations can you observe in this cli
Which are similar to human behaviour?
How is it that the penguins know exactly whe
to go to breed and when to meet up?
You can identify behaviour and anatomical
adaptations.
http://www.flickclip.com/flicks/marchofthepenguins.htm
Temperature Temperature
at start 0C
at end 0C
Single
penguin
Huddled
penguin
Total
temperature
Change 0C
Controlling body temperature
Volume : Surface
area ratio = 1:6
Volume : Surface
area ratio = 1:24
The bigger the
Volume : Surface Area ratio
is, the faster heat will be
lost.
Why don’t penguins feet freeze?
Penguins keep their eggs
on their feet to stop the
egg from freezing but
why don’t their feet
freeze?
Here’s the simple part…
They avoid their feet getting too cold by
hunching down so that their belly
feathers cover their feet.
They also rock back onto their heels and
tail to lift their feet off the ice.
Really interestingly they have a kind of heat exchanger to
regulate their foot temperature; blood vessels which flow
away from the feet are close to vessels running towards the
feet, so just the right amount of heat can be transferred
between them to keep the feet from freezing.
If their feet were too warm, they would waste lots of
energy. If they get too cold, the amount of warm blood
flowing to the feet can also be increased by widening the
diameter of the arteries running to the feet. This is called
vaso-dilation.