Animal Adaptations

As someone who focuses on wildlife education both professionally and in my volunteer role, a topic I speak of often is that of animal adaptations. So today that’s what this blog is about, animal adaptations: what are they and how does a species adapt?

One of the questions I get asked quite a lot when the topic of climate change and polar bears comes up is, “Can’t they just adapt to a warmer climate?” Unfortunately, it’s not at all that simple. This is just a basic overview but some content may be a little technical so please bear with me – no pun intended! 

Ok...what are adaptations? In simple terms, an adaptation is a specific characteristic (or set of characteristics) that allows a species to live and reproduce in a particular environment. There are three types of adaptations:

Behavioural:  instinctual or learned behaviours that help a species thrive in its environment.

Physical or structural: parts of a species’ body structure that help it thrive in its environment.

Physiological: parts of a species’ biology (inner workings of the body/organism) that help it thrive in its environment.

Still with me? I hope so.

So, how does a species adapt? Specific adaptations don’t happen overnight, they often take thousands of years to evolve into exactly what each species need to survive and compete successfully within their unique environment.

Because I brought up polar bears above, I’m going to use them as my example here. Polar bears evolved from grizzly bears (somewhere between 250,000 to 400,000 years ago) in order to occupy and thrive in an Arctic environment as the top predator. They went from being an omnivorous, terrestrial animal (grizzly) to a carnivore that is specifically adapted to life on sea-ice, relying on the marine food chain (polar bears eat seals).

Now, if a species’ environment changes can it adapt? Well, rates of change are very important and there will always be different scenarios and variables that prevent a definitive answer. But there is something important to keep in mind when thinking about adaptations – a species is usually considered either a ‘generalist’ or a ‘specialist’, and this can play a key role in their ability to adapt successfully to rapid and/or big changes in their environment.

A generalist is a species whose behavioural, structural and/or physiological adaptations allow it to survive and thrive in various types of environments. A great example of a generalist is a raccoon. These animals can live in many different types of habitats and, as I’m sure you know, even do very well in urban settings. Their adaptations are flexible and general enough that they would likely survive if their environment changed (unless the change was extreme). So don’t hate the raccoon because he was able to adapt to the changes we made!

A specialist on the other hand is a species whose adaptations allow it to survive in a very particular environment and/or with specialized dietary needs. Removing it from or changing that specific environment or food source can make it very challenging and often times impossible for this species to survive.

Back to my polar bear example - you now know they are of course a specialist species and you also know the answer to the question, “Can’t they just adapt to a warmer climate?” They are supremely adapted to their cold, Arctic home. So as climate change melts and alters their sea-ice habitat, it’s not hard to see how increasingly difficult it becomes for these specialists to survive. Remember – adaptations take thousands of years to evolve.

There are almost as many different adaptations as there are animals. As I continue to write about different species of wildlife, I will definitely highlight some really cool and extraordinary examples of their adaptations so you can appreciate just how amazing animals really are!