Chapter 3 - Adaptations Flashcards
What are Basic needs?
Food, water, air, and shelter
All living things have the same needs
What is adaptation?
Is a body part or behavior that a living thing gets from its parents and which helps it survive.
Fur color (for animals)
Scales (for fish)
Frogs; lizards (long tongues to catch insects)
Birds (beaks and migrating to a warmer climate)
What are instincts?
Behaviors animals are born with that help them meet their needs.
So they are inherited traits
I.e.: a spider knows how to spin a web to catch its food
What is learned behavior?
Animals are taught behaviors to help them meet their needs
What is migration?
To move from one area to another.
It is an instinctive behavior
Animals migrate to a place that has more food and a better climate
What is hibernation?
Animals enter a dormant, inactive state.
The heart barely beats, breathing almost stops.
The body temperature drops to just above freezing
Since the body is barely working, a hibernating animal doesn’t use much energy and doesn’t need to eat. There is enough fat stored in the animals body to keep it alive through the winter
What is a fossil?
Evidence of a plant or animal that lived long ago
Ie:: footprints, bones, teeth etc
What is extinction?
All members of a certain kind of living thing have died.
It can happen when a habitat changes, increase of predators, decrease in food supply.
What are basic needs of plants?
Sunlight to make their own food
Water
Air
All through openings in leaves (stomata)
Why do plants and animals have adaptations?
These adaptations help them meet their basic needs
Why don’t all animals have the same adaptations?
Animals eat different foods, live in different places and have different enemies, so they need different adaptations to survive
Why don’t all animals migrate or hibernate?
Some animals have adapted to survive cold weather and don’t need to avoid it.
Others have different methods of surviving the cold, such as living in burrows under the ground.
What are some examples of adaptations?
Fur color, scales, different kinds of beaks and feet, migration, hibernation
What are some instinctive behaviors?
When babies cry, when babies drink from a bottle, web making, nest making, living in herds
Why do some animals hibernate?
Some animals hibernate to live through the winter. Most animals hibernate in winter, when food is scare and temperatures are cold
How are animals hibernating needs different from their normal needs?
The animals need little or no food when they are hibernating
What must an animal do before it begins to hibernate?
The animal must eat more food to gain fat and must make a shelter before it hibernates
How do animals know when to migrate?
Animals know by instinct when to migrate, but it is generally when the day length (hours of sunlight) changes
What are some learned behaviors that animals may have?
Mammal mothers usually teach their young how to get food and how to protect themselves. Some animals can be trained (dogs)
How might a change in the environment affect plants differently than it would animals?
If a habitat no longer meets the needs of animals, the animals might be able to move to find a suitable new habitat.
Plants cannot move, however, and might not survive such changes.
