ANIMALS! ANIMALS! What Do Animals Need? Body Coverings How Animals Hide? Suited to Their Food How Animals Behave?

What Do Animals Need? Animals need energy in order to move. The kind of food it needs depends on the animal, e.g. sheep eat grass, while lions eat other animals. Animals must protect themselves from enemies and from the weather. A shelter helps keep an animal safe, dry, and maintains body temperature to keep warm or cool. All animals live on land need oxygen from air to breathe. Most animals need water to survive.

Body Coverings Animals differ from one another is in their body coverings. Some animals, such as fish, are covered with scales. Lizards have scales, too. Scales in fish help protect them from enemies, while scales in lizards help keep their bodies from drying out. Birds are covered with feathers. Down feathers trap heat and contour feathers keep the down feathers dry. Some animals have fur, like down feather, fur holds body heat next to the animals’ skin.

How Animals Hide? An adaptation is any body covering, body part, or behavior that helps an animal live in its environment. An animal that eats other animals is called a predator. Prey is any animal that may become food for another animal. The adaptation that allows animals to blend into their surroundings is known as camouflage. Color is not the only element that helps an animal hide, it may be camouflaged by its shape, color, and pattern.

Suited to Their Food Animals have teeth that are useful for just the foods they eat. Birds have different kinds of beaks that help them catch food. Some of them have sharp, pointed beak which is good to eat insects. Some use heavy beak to crack big seeds and nuts open. Elephants use their trunks to reach for food, to smell, and to drink. Armadillo uses her long claws to dig hole and uses her long, sticky tongue to flick in and out, lapping up food to eat. Some animals can stay asleep, hibernate, for months without eating.

How Animals Behave? We have learned that animals can hide from predators by means of camouflage in color, pattern or shape. For some animals, like gazelle, they can run as fast as a car - speed at 100 km/hr. (62 miles/hour). Other animals fly or swim to safety. Some, like giraffes and zebra, they stay in group to protect themselves. Some animals migrate or hibernate to survive from the difficult and harsh winter. Animals sometimes respond in the ways that are instinctive - behavior that are born with. Other behaviors develop after birth - learned behaviors, a bear cub learns from mother how to catch salmon in the river bank.