Adaptations

By Kimiko Shihara Raheem

Adaptation is when an organism must have certain qualities which help them adjust to their environmental conditions.

What is Adaptation?

Examples

The following few slides show examples of how organisms have adapted to their environment.

The organisms are Polar Bears, Camels, and Cacti.

Polar Bears

• Polar Bears live in the Antarctic and have adapted to their freezing cold environmental conditions.

• Here are some examples of how they have adapted to the Antarctic;

• Thick layer of fat - the thick layer of fat that the Polar bears have insulate them and keep them warm. It also helps them to store food

• A thick hairy coat - The Polar Bears coat makes extremely warm because it keeps the heat in their body

• White coat- the Polar Bears white coat helps them to camouflage into the ice.

• Big feet- the big feet that the Polar Bears have helps them to spread their weight out evenly on the snow or ice

Camels

Camels live in the deserts, where it is extremely hot. They must adapt to this temperature. Hot temperatures may cause draughts and is a threat to life.

Here are some examples on how the camels have adapted to their environmental condition;

• Storing water- camels can drink up to 20 gallons of water at once. They then store water in their big humps on their back – this gets extremely handy in times of droughts.

• Loses water- camels lose very little water when they excrete urine and sweat

• Big changes- camels can cope with big changes in temperature and don’t sweat below 46 degrees Celsius –this prevents water loss

• Big feet- the camels big feet allow them to spread their weight on the sand which stops the camels from sinking into the sand

• The camels dull gold, sandy color help them to camouflage with the sand

Camel Point OutsThe Camel’s hump that stores water in times of drought.

The gold, sand skin color allows the camels to camouflage with the sand

This is a camel’s foot. It’s bigger than it looks huh? The large size of the camels feet prevent them from sinking into the sand.

CactiCacti live in the desert, where they must adapt to their very hot

morning environment, and very cold night environment. They also have to adapt to how dry the desert is. There is less than 25mm of rainfall per year.

Here are some examples of how Cactus have adapted to their environmental conditions;

• No leaves- Cactus have no leaves which reduce the amount of water loss

• Water Storage- the cactus store water in it’s thick stem for times of draught

• Spines- the spines stop other animals from eating them• Roots- The cactus roots have long roots that are very close to the

surface. This allows them to take water in quickly over a large area.

Cacti Point Outs

These nasty spines protect the cactus from other organisms that eat the cactus.

Summary

So over all, Adaptations is when organisms must modify and adjust themselves to be able to tolerate the Environmental Conditions in their habitat.

Thank you for watching my presentation!

I hope you understood the concept of Adaptation and express interest in this.