Why Don’t Jellyfish Have Brains? And Other Odd Invertebrate Adaptations
Amazing Adaptations Some adaptations are MONARCH BUTTERFLY The animal kingdom is full of amazing adaptations Living things adapt in order to survive in their habitats Adaptations start out as mutations If a mutation is helpful it’s passed down from parents to their young Over time this mutation even if it seems odd becomes normal physical or body characteristics These are called structural adaptations An example is the hard shell of a crab which keeps it safe from predators Other adaptations have to do with behavior Monarch butterflies journey south to Mexico each year is a behavioral adaptation They travel thousands of miles to live in warm weather through winter 4 Adaptations serve different purposes Some help predators hunt prey Others help prey stay safe from predators Many adaptations deal with a living thing’s environment or surroundings Animals in the Arctic may have white fur to blend in with snow Animals living in the deep sea have special senses for living in the dark ADAPTATIONS AID
A common adaptation is camouflage or a shape color or behavior that helps animals blend in with their environment bugs called walking sticks are shaped and colored like twigs on the forest floor 5
Incredible Invertebrates Invertebrates are animals without a bony skeleton or backbone They’re the most successful of all animals which means there are a lot of them About 97 percent of all animals are invertebrates and most of these are insects Other invertebrates are corals crabs spiders worms and octopuses Sea sponges and jellyfish are also invertebrates Invertebrates range in size from microscopic to giant kinds of adaptations It’s not hard to find some odd ones Weird invertebrate adaptations include killer poison the ability to live without a brain and even mind control So many different kinds of invertebrates means many THE FIRST CREATURES ON EARTH SEA SPONGE 6 Scientists study ancient creatures through their fossils and they make discoveries every day For a time scientists thought that the first creature on Earth was the ocean-drifting comb jellyfish Now they believe sea creatures called sponges were the first Both these invertebrates still exist today millions of years later
Scientists think there might be more than 30 million species or kinds of invertebrates on Earth So far only about 1 25 million species have been discovered 7
