20 Examples of Adaptations (in living things)
Miscellanea / / July 04, 2021
The adaptations are some striking aspects of the living beings, which allow them to survive in a certain place and multiply. For example: the anteater's tail, which serves as a coat.
Charles Darwin, the foremost theorist on evolution, rightly viewed adaptation as the most important problem facing any theory setting out to acknowledge the history of evolution of species.
For the theory of natural selection, contributed by the same scientist, adaptation occurs spontaneously through the supremacy of the fittest.
Supremacy of the Fittest
The changes in living things, which are more easily noticed in the case of animals, are the result of the pressure exerted by the environment on the individual, whether at a behavioral, physical or physiological level.
The environment It is understood as an entity that encompasses both the climate, such as vegetation, as other animals, the relief and all the factors that influence daily life: when some of them change, those that cannot adapt die and only the most prepared survive, which reproduce giving rise to new creatures better prepared.
Anyway, the variation theoryRandom selection and differentiation is not limited to natural selection. On the contrary, many other explanations complement the question of adaptation, among which is simply chance, chance and even artificial selection that man does.
Adaptations can be thought of as very complex machines, where million small changes they do their part to produce an evolution. These changes must be oriented in one direction if they are to produce a fortuitous evolution, and this is not always the case: the cases of mutations are the best counterexample.
Examples of adaptation in living beings
- The digestive system of crocodiles, adapted to ingest a wide variety of dams.
- The movement of the fish is favored by the undulating movements of its body.
- The nictitating membranes of crocodiles, to protect the eyes from water.
- Increased horse size, to deal with prairie predators.
- The great development of muscles for chewing, in the case of wolves.
- The anteater's tail, which serves as a coat.
- The vertebrates aquatic that have fins, membranes that serve to swim.
- The mollusks, which have a long muscular foot that allows them to fixate on the sand to move.
- The adaptation of the horse to group life, to protect itself in the habitat from the meadow.
- The jaws of the birds, which lengthen like toothless beaks.
- The hunting technique of sea snakes, biting their prey and holding them until the venom takes effect.
- The teeth of the omnivores, prepared to grind vegetables and also to tear meat.
- Aquatic vegetables, which produce modifications in their body shape to adapt to the conditions of food and light. In offshore areas, algae must develop structures that allow them to float.
- The layer of fluff that covers the body of the camel, preventing the direct arrival of the sun's rays to the epidermis of the camel.
- The fingers of primates, opposable to pick up tree branches.
- A survival technique of the mammals for winter is the reduction of temperature bodily.
- The anteater, which catches prey with a worm-like tongue impregnated with sticky saliva.
- The tail of sea snakes, compressed laterally for locomotion, like a paddle.
- The speed of the herbivores, as a defense mechanism due to its prey condition for carnivores.
- Herbivorous mammals, which have larger incisors than carnivores to cut grass.
Types of adaptation
Accommodations can be classified into three groups:
Follow with: