Download Animal Adaptations and Responses

Animal Adaptations and Responses
6-3.2 Summarize the basic functions of the structures of animals that allow them to defend themselves, to move, and to obtain resources.
6-3.5 Illustrate animal behavioral responses (including hibernation, migration, defense, and courtship) to environmental stimuli.
Animal Adaptations: Physical and Behavioral
Animals’ bodies and behaviors have adapted to their environments so that they can survive and pass on their genes to the next
generation.
Physical Adaptations
- Body structures that allow an animal to find and consume food, move, defend itself, to reproduce its species
- Animals have adapted their bodies to best fit the environment they live in.
Arthropods
Reptiles
Fish
Mammals
Birds
-Fur/hair
for
protection
-Exoskeleton
-Scaly, waterproof skin -Large, powerful fins
-Bones: Hollow 
from cold and predators
-Jointed legs
-A second eyelid used for swimming
lightweight to help in
-Antennae
for underwater
-Overlapping scaly skin -Live birth so families can flight
-Specialized eyes
activities
for smooth travel
move quickly
- Feathers: to keep a
-Specialized
-Strong, muscular
through water
-Claws/nails for offense
streamlined shape to
mandibles/pincers
bodies (legs, tail, jaw)
-Coloration for
and defense
-Wings
-Strong mouth
protection from above -Forward facing eyes for stay aloft
- Excellent eyesight :
-Amniotic eggs for
and beneath
3D vision
reproduction on land
-Gills for underwater
to be able to see prey
-Omnivorous teeth for
-Sometimes a hard
breathing
from high in the sky
multipurpose use
outer shell.
- Swim bladder for
-Bent arms/legs for
stabilization in water
sudden strength.
Body Armor: Adaptations to an animal’s outer covering to lessen the chance that it will
be hurt or killed by another animal’s attack.
Appendages: The limbs (arms and legs) of an animal are best suited to the environment
they live in.
Shape: The shape of an animal can tell you what environment they live in and how they
best move.
- The smoother the outline of an animal, the less resistance there is when moving. This is called streamlining.
Ex. A shark’s shape, large muscular tail, and flexible skeleton make it an excellent swimmer.
Structures for Movement
- Allow animals to move to fulfill their needs such as finding food and escaping
predators
+ legs, feet and arms, tails, fins, wings, body design, skeleton
- Examples: Wings and feathers for birds, Tentacles for squid and octopus, Legs and
arms for almost any animal, Webbed feet or toes for ducks and frogs, Fins and tails
for fish
Structural Adaptations for Obtaining Resources
- Allow an animal to chew, tear, and eat its food or drink: mouth parts
including beaks, teeth, flexible jaws, tongues, tube-shaped
- Allow an animal to grab and hold its food: tentacles, pincers, claws,
fangs
- Allow an animal to consume food found in the water: filtering
structures for filter feeders in sponges or clams
- An animal may have an adaptation that is best suited for obtaining a
specific part of their diet.
- The adaptation makes it easy to catch that prey, but when that food is
scarce, it can make it difficult to find other food.
Behavioral Adaptations
- Behavior: complex set of responses to stimuli
- Behavioral responses: refer to how animals cope (deal) with changes in their environments.
- the things animals do to survive.
- either learned or inherited (innate)
- These behaviors can be grouped in the following categories: hibernation, migration, defense, courtship
Hibernation
Migration
- Hibernation: state of greatly reduced body activity, used to
- The movement of animals from one place to
conserve food stored in the body. - Why hibernate?
another in response to seasonal changes.
Stimulus: extreme weather (generally
- In search of better
cold winter) or lack of food
places to reproduce, find
Some animals hibernate for part or all
food, and obtain
of the winter.
resources.
Summer hibernation is called
- Migrating animals
estivation.
usually use the same
- What is happening: The animal's body temperature drops, its
routes year after year.
heartbeat and breathing slow down, and it uses very little energy - The cycle is controlled by changes in the amount
(metabolic rate decreases-needing fewer calories )
of daylight and the weather.
- Examples: ants, snakes, black bears, beavers, and ground
- Examples: monarch butterflies, orcas, caribou,
squirrels.
crabs, and ducks.
Hibernation is learned or inherited?
- Migration is learned or inherited?
Structures for Defense
- Allow an animal to hide from a predator or warn a predator : skin color (camouflage) or patterns (mimicry)
- Allow an animal to make a direct attack painful: horns, claws, quills, stingers, or venom
- Allow an animal to flee or hide from predators: body design, sensory organs, legs for speed or jumping, wings, or lightweight skeletons for flight
- Allow an animal to construct holes or tunnels to run into and hide or to climb: paws or toenails
- Animals have adapted many different ways to defend themselves.
- These are classified in the following groups: camouflage, size change, smells, stingers, ejection, mimicry, and grouping.
Camouflage
- Protective coloration to survive changes in its environment.
- Some animals develop their camouflage in response to the weather:
+artic fox and snowshoe hare : They develop a white coat for the winter to blend in with the
snow and a gray coat in the summer to blend in with the forest.
- Some animals change colors to blend into the environment to avoid predators or being detected by prey:
chameleons and other lizards
- Camouflage is an adaptation that allows an animal to hide or deceive a predator or prey by looking similar to its
surroundings.
- Camouflage is learned or innate?
Size Change
- Allow an animal to change its size prevent a direct attack (for example shells, emitting smells or body flu
ids (ink), or mechanisms)
Smells
- Smells are chemicals produced by some animals to repel other animals, or types of animals.
- Skunks use an offensive odor in response to fear. The skunk turns the predator's sense of smell against it
by issuing a stream of oily, foul smelling musk.
Stingers
- means by which an animal defends itself, or uses to obtain food by injuring/killing another animal.
- The stinger usually injects a venom into the other animal.
- Wasps and bees use a stinger for protection when frightened or threatened.
Ejection
- Ejection is the production of chemicals specifically to physically target another animal for defense
or offense.
- It also includes ejecting parts of its body to distract the predator.
- This adaptation allows an animal to keep their distance from others to stay safe.
- The black ink cloud of an octopus is a defense mechanism because it gives the animal a chance to
escape from a predator.
- When the horned lizard gets really scared, it shoots blood out of its eyes allowing it time to
escape.
Mimicry
- When a “weaker” animal copies stronger animals' characteristics to warn off predators.
- Some animals may look like another more poisonous or dangerous animal that give it protection,
such as a “false” coral snake or hawk moth caterpillar that looks like a snake.
- certain moths have markings that look like eyes
some flower flies resemble black and yellow wasps that have a powerful sting and use this
disguise to ward off predators
- Mimicry is an adaptation that fools other animals into thinking that the organism is a
different type of animal.
- This can be used for offensive or defensive purposes.
- Looking and acting like another more dangerous animal can protect that animal.
Grouping
- Grouping is an adaptation that keeps a herd of animals together for safety
purposes.
- If a herd is close, they appear to be a large animal and a predator cannot pick out
an individual to chase after.
- This social behavior occurs when certain animals travel together in groups to
protect individuals within the group or to fool a predator into thinking the group is
one large organism.
- Examples may include herds (buffalo, zebra, cattle), packs (wolves), or schools of fish.
Courting
- Courtship in animals is usually a behavioral process whereby adults of a species try to attract a potential mate.
- Courtship behaviors ensure that males and females of the same species recognize each other.
- Environmental stimuli, such as seasonal changes, will stimulate courtship.
- Often sensory cues (for example, chemical odor cues, sounds, or color) will serve as
courtship attractants in animals.
- Courtship is the process by which a male and female prepare to mate.
- It is different in every species.
- It generally consists of one of the sexes trying to impress a member of the opposite
sex with a show of strength, song, color, etc.
- The male usually impresses the female.
- In nature, it generally is the male that is the loudest and most colorful for this reason.
1) What is the best definition of behavior?
a) How an organism’s body adapts to its environment
b) The learned mechanisms of survival in organisms
c) The sum total of good and bad actions that an organism does
d) The way an organism acts in its environment
2. Courtship behavior helps organisms:
a) Eat b) Learn c) Reproduce d) Survive