Adaptations

Animal Traits• Different animals have

different shapes and sizes• They may even have different

body parts• Each feature is important to

the survival of the specific animal

• Things like body types are inherited from the animal’s parents

• Traits are body features that an animal inherits

• Are the features always physical things?

Behavioral Traits

• Instincts

• Migrating

• Hibernating

Instincts vs. Learned Behaviors• Instincts are behaviors

that animals are born to know how to do.

• Nest-making• Taking care of young• Defending oneself

• Learned behaviors are taught behaviors that are essential to the animal’s survival.

• These behaviors may also be learned through experience.

• Bears teach their cubs to hunt

• If an animal eats a bug that doesn’t taste good, he less likely to do it again.

Which type?Learned Behaviors Instincts

Bird Singing

Cub learning to hunt

Nest-making

Protecting itself

Raising young

Hibernate

• When animals enter a deep sleep in which life activities slow down

• Why do animals do this?• The animals cannot find

enough food to keep their bodies warm during the winter

• In the fall animals eat a lot of food to help them survive through the long winter

• Heartbeat slows• Body temperature drops• Breathing slows• Bats, chipmunk, bears

Migrate• When animals travel as a

group from one place to live in another

• Many birds fly south in the fall to spend the winter in warmer places

• Why do they migrate?• Gray whales, monarch

butterflies, geese, ducks, caribou

• Why doesn’t a small herd of caribou migrate?

Structural Adaptations

What are structural adaptations?

• Adaptations that an animal posses that helps him survive in its habitat.

• Reasons animals adapt– Food– Climate– Get oxygen– Protection from Predators– Raise its young

Camouflage

• A natural disguise some animals have to help them blend in with their surroundings

• Colors, patterns, shapes• Some animals that live in

the snow have white coat to provide camouflage

• Polar bears, arctic foxes, snowshoe rabbits, chameleon, frogs, fish, bugs

Mimicry

• An animal’s imitation of another animal or of an object in order to avoid predators

• Some animals have markings that tell animals other animals that they are not good to eat

• Monarch and viceroy butterflies

Why do octopuses change color?

Protection from predators

Why do kangaroos have pouches?

Raising their young

Why do anteaters have long snouts?

Food

Why do kangaroo rats only come out at night in the desert?

Climate

Why do frogs have gills when they are young and lungs when

they get older?Oxygen