This document provides information about animal adaptations from the South View Primary School Science e-learning course. It discusses structural and behavioral adaptations and how different adaptations help animals obtain food, avoid predators, regulate temperature, move in water/air, breathe in water/air, and more. Specific animal examples are given to illustrate different adaptations like a camel's hump for storing water, a zebra's stripes for camouflage, and human use of clothing for temperature regulation. Students are assigned to imagine and draw an animal with adaptations for a hot, dry environment where it eats spiky plants and describe its characteristics and adaptations.

1. South View Primary School
Science e-learning 2015
Day 1
Adaptations in Animals

2. Advantages of adaptations
Getting
a meal
Avoid
becoming
a meal
Keeping
warm or cool
Finding
a mate
Raising
offspring

3. Structural and Behavioral Adaptations
 Structural adaptations are the special body
parts of an organism that help it to survive in its
natural habitat. For example the bill on a bird
and the fur of a bear.
 Behavioral adaptations are special ways an
organism behaves to survive in its natural
habitat. For example birds migration and
hibernation are behavioral adaptations.

4. Adaptation in animals - For escaping
predators
A red crab
An earthworm in a burrow

5. Adaptation in animals - For escaping
predators
 Defending – using spines, puff up
Puffer fish
Hedgehog

6. Adaptation in animals- For
escaping predators
Cameleon
• Body coverings - Camouflage
Leaf Insect

7. Adaptation in animals - For
escaping predators
 Other ways – living in groups, having
warning colour, moving away quickly,
appearing like another organism

8. Adaptation in animals
Coping with extreme temperatures
 Cold environment- Have thick
fur or feathers or thick layer
of fat under skin
 Hot environment – sweat and
urinate very little, store fat in
body, hide in shade or under
large trees

9. Adaptation in animals - for movement
in water
Have swim bladder for staying afloat
Have flippers, fins or webbed feet
Have a streamlined body shape

10. Adaptation in animals - for movement
in air
Have feathers, wings and flight muscles
Have streamlined body
Have hollow bones

11. Adaptation in animals – for breathing
in water
Have gills, gill chambers, skin,
breathing tube, air bubble, special
nostril, blowing hole

12. Adaptation in animals - for breathing
on land
Breathing holes
Nostrils
Skin

13. Adaptation in animals - for obtaining
food
 Hunt in pairs
 Adapted feet – claws
or talons
 Mouth – sharp
pointed teeth or
fangs, hooked beak
(eagle), straw like
mouth (butterflies)
 Keen eyesight

14. Why do camels have humps?
The camel’s humps help it to:
Stay cool
Store
food for
energy
Store
water

15. Why do zebras have stripes?
What are the different adaptations
that other animals have?

16. Adaptation In Man
 Humans artificially adapt to extremes in
their environment.
 For example, putting on coats and
sunglasses, using air conditioners and
heaters , sunscreen during different
weather conditions.

17. Reading:
 Adaptation notes.doc

18. Assignment : Build a Beast
 Use the following notes to help you complete (a) and (b)
 Environment: Hot and dry.
 Diet: Mainly spiky plants
 Movement: Non-flying animal
a) With the above information, imagine an animal that may or may
not exist. Decide where it lives and what it eats. Think carefully
the adaptations that it needs in order to survive in the habitat.
Draw the animal that you have imagined
b) Describe in about 120 words, the characteristics and
adaptation features of the animal that help it to survive in the
habitat. You may refer to the drawing to help you. Complete it
in nature study book.