Animal Adaptations

Hello people of the world. Today I am giving you all a presentation about animal adaptations.

But Sofia.. what are animal adaptations!?

I'm glad you asked, unnamed voice! Animal adaptations are features animals have gained over time to help them survive.

Oh, cool. Well uh there's probably like a common-rare thing here, so what's the most common animal adaptation?

The most common animal adaptation is FUR.

Almost every warm blooded animal in the world has fur in one way or another.

Even humans have fur. We have hair on our legs, arms, abdomens, and all over our body. That hair used to act as fur, but now we wear clothes.

Sofia! That was just an example of an animal adaptation!

Wow. The unnamed voice was paying attention. Huh.

Yes, I was. But what you said; That was an animal adaptation for humans! They realized they didn't need the hair on their bodies because they had clothes, so they evolved into not having coarse hair!

That is.. Correct

Cool! So animal adaptations are supposed to be good, right? Well, are there any that disadvantage animals?

Nope! Not at all. All animal adaptations advantage animals in some way, shape, or form.

Oh. I thought there were... well, uh, how do tails help animals?

Tails help animals in a few ways.

• They use their tails to brush away wasps or other biting insects
• Some animals use their tails to help them balance
• Some other animals use their tails to hang from trees. These are called prehensile tails.

Awesome! Tails just reminded me of camels, for some reason. How do humps help camels?

Camels have humps on their backs to store fat. They use this fat to live off of when food and water are scarce.

A well-fed, healthy camel in good condition has a nice, firm hump. After a long journey in the desert, that same camel will have a floppy hump that leans to one side.

Awesome! So, now I have a question about nocturnal animals. How does being nocturnal help animals?

There are a few ways.

1. Being nocturnal makes you harder to detect

Nocturnal animals, like the mouse for example, are small. So they rely on darkness to survive.

2. It helps you avoid conflict with diurnal animals

Let's use the cheetah and lion as an example. Cheetahs usually hunt in the day, and lions in the night.

Lions and cheetahs have somewhat of the same prey. So, if they both hunted during the day, for example, conflict between the two animals would be inevitable.

So it's great that one is nocturnal and one is diurnal.

Okay, well, I have one question for you. What are the different types of animal adaptations?

There are two types of animal adaptations.

Physical Adaptations

A physical adaptation is some type of structural modification made to a part of the body.

Behavioural adaptations

A behavioural adaptation is something an animal does - how it acts - usually in response to a change in the environment.

Aaand...
That's the end.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
https://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20120221223848AAPHp8r
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tail
http://www.livescience.com/32366-why-do-camels-have-humps.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel
https://www.zoosociety.org/pdf/GuidedTours/AnimalAdap.pdf