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A xerocole (from Greek xēros / ˈ z ɪ r oʊ s / 'dry' and Latin col(ere) 'to inhabit'), [2] [3] [4] is a general term referring to any animal that is adapted to live in a desert. The main challenges xerocoles must overcome are lack of water and excessive heat. To conserve water they avoid evaporation and concentrate excretions (i.e. urine and ...
Secondary aquatic adaptations tend to develop in early speciation as the animal ventures into water in order to find available food. As successive generations spend more time in the water, natural selection causes the acquisition of more adaptations. Animals of later generations may spend most their life in the water, coming ashore for mating.
It lives along the plant-covered banks of stagnant and slow-flowing bodies of water, where it feeds on small fragments of plant material, animals (such as nematodes), or carrion. It swims with characteristic jerky movements. Cyclops has the capacity to survive unsuitable conditions by forming a cloak of slime. Average lifespan is about three ...
Sleeping the season away. If an animal’s physiology, diet, or other characteristics don’t allow it to stay warm and/or find sufficient food during the winter, an additional set of survival ...
Aquatic animals generally conduct gas exchange in water by extracting dissolved oxygen via specialised respiratory organs called gills, through the skin or across enteral mucosae, although some are evolved from terrestrial ancestors that re-adapted to aquatic environments (e.g. marine reptiles and marine mammals), in which case they actually ...
Wading and bottom-feeding animals (e.g. moose and manatee) need to be heavier than water in order to keep contact with the floor or to stay submerged, surface-living animals (e.g. otters) need the opposite, and free-swimming animals living in open waters (e.g. dolphins) need to be neutrally buoyant in order to be able to swim up and down the ...
A well-known example of a specialist animal is the monophagous koala, which subsists almost entirely on eucalyptus leaves. The raccoon is a generalist, because it has a natural range that includes most of North and Central America, and it is omnivorous, eating berries , insects such as butterflies, eggs, and various small animals.
The heart provides blood to these organs using contractions, pushing blood along the dorsal and ventral vessels. Beneath the heart lies the animal's stomach which connects to an oesophagus that is used to consume food. Finally, surrounding the organs is a coelom filled with coelomocytes, a type of phagocyte that acts as an immune system for the ...