Question: how do animals adapt to there enviroment?

Gemma Sharp answered on 13 Jun 2011:

Animals can adapt to the environment in the short term and the long term.

In the short term, the bodies of animals adapt to their current environments to do things like keep cool or warm. So if you left a warm house and went out in the snow in the winter your body would start shivering to generate heat and you’d get goosebumps to make your hairs stand on end to keep a layer of warm air close to your body. If you get too hot in the summer you might start sweating because as the sweat evaporates it draws heat away from your body.

In the long term, animals can adapt to their environments by developing different mechanisms to help them survive. So animals that live in really cold environments have certain ‘adaptations’ that help them keep warm all the time, like the thick fur polar bears have, or the blubber seals have to keep them insulated against the cold sea. Animals that live in hot climates tend to have less fur and have developed other adaptations to help them keep cool.

Animals can also adapt to things other than temperature, for example some animals are born with all their fur and the ability to run because they live in an environment where there are a lot of predators about, where as other animals that live in safer environments (like humans!) are born more helpless and dependent on their parents.

The way that animals adapt to their environment in the long term is through natural selection. Basically animals with the features that help them survive (like having lots of fur if they live somewhere cold) are more likely to live and produce more offspring, so the genes for those features get passed on to the next generation, while the genes for the useless features ‘die out’.

This is a really good question! Sorry If I’ve gone on a bit too much! Let me know if you need me to clarify anything.