Habitat of the Living Notes

Animals:

• Animals which live in water must have special adaptations to help them survive in an aquatic habitat.
• The more time an animal spends in the water, the more adaptations the animal will have for an aquatic life.
• Aquatic animals show a variety of adaptations to stay in water.
• Ducks have webbed feet that help them in swimming.

Duck

• Adaptations refer to the changes in an organism over a long period of time.
• There are certain changes that can occur in an organism over a short period of time, which help it to adjust to the changes in its surroundings.
• This is called acclimatization.
• For example, very thick wool grows on the sheep in cold climates.

Thick wool grows on sheep

• Many animal species around the world have been subjected to severe over-fishing and hunting.
• Governments are being encouraged to take part in movements to ban the hunting of certain animal species around the world.
• Long, drift nets were used for mass-scale fishing in the open ocean but caused the death of numerous other animals including sea turtles, whales, seals and dolphins.
• To stop this from happening, the many countries have now banned these nets from being dropped into the ocean. In order to discourage the poaching of endangered animals (generally for their body parts) there are now laws against trading them.
• Endangered animals such as tigers, rhinos, seahorses and even coral are poached in order to sell in the medicine markets in the east.