Living things adapt themselves to the environment. Adaptation is how living things look and behave or how they make life suitable. The reason for adaptation is that they want to survive so they can reproduce their habits. There are two kinds of adaptation, including physical adaptation and behavioral adaptation. Behavioral adaptation means the way living things change, move, or act their behaviors in the environment where they live to make themselves more likely to survive while physical adaptation means living things are trying to adapt themselves to the environment by forming or changing their body parts to help them survive. Which one would you choose? Physical adaptation or behavioral adaptation?
Physical adaptation refers to the fact that some animals or plants have special body parts, such as skin, shapes, or color, to help them live safely in their natural habitat. Giraffes, monkeys, skunks, polar bears, and roses are examples of physical adaptation. Giraffes’ long necks allow them to reach the top of tall trees for fresh leaves. Monkeys’ long tails act like they have another hand to swing quickly through the trees while holding their babies or grabbing food. Skunks spray out the horrible smell from their bottoms to scare away the predators that are larger than them so the predator will hunt other animals to eat. Polar bears have thick layers of fur that can keep their body warm against the cold. Roses have prickly horns that will prevent other animals from eating their leaves.
Behavioral adaptation happens when living things change how they behave to fit into the environment. Canada Geese, brown bears, garter snakes, stick insects, and butterflies are examples of behavioral adaptation. Canada Geese fly south, especially in September and October, from their native habitats in Canada to warm places in the United States for winter survival. Brown bears hibernate through the long cold winter when the temperature is very low and food is very hard to find. Cold-blooded garter snakes hibernate during the winter in dens with hundreds of other garter snakes together. Stick insects camouflage themselves in the branches of the trees to look like they are one part of it so the predators don’t see them immediately. Some butterfly’s wings have circles that look like eyes to scare away predators from eating them.
If I have a choice to choose physical adaptation and behavioral adaptation, I would choose behavioral adaptation. First, behavioral adaptation could provide me with more protection. Both adaptations are helping living things to survive but in different ways. Physical adaptation is more likely to help animals by getting food while behavioral adaptation is more likely to help animals by protecting them from predators. In order to get food, you need to live first. Therefore I will choose behavioral adaptation. Also, behavior adaptation could help me adapt to different places. With global warming and ice melting, polar bears have less and less land to live on; but Canada geese can fly anywhere during the winter as long as their habitat is warm. Moreover, physical adaptation is very slow and takes a long time to develop, but behavioral adaptation can help me make the change quickly to fit into the new environment.
To survive in the habitat, some animals and plants need to make changes in their body or change their behaviors. Humans can learn a lot from living things’ physical adaptation and behavioral adaptation. This suggests to us that we humans need to protect nature, not destroy it. Nature already gives us a lot of resources such as water, land, air, animals, and plants. If we don’t protect nature, the resources would be disappearing.
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