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Understand how habitats change throughout the year and how animals adapt.
What if you could sleep for four months straight without ever waking up for a snack? Some animals do exactly that to survive the freezing winter!
A habitat is a home for a plant or animal. In many places, habitats change when the seasons change. When winter arrives, the temperature drops and the days get shorter. This causes big problems for animals! Food like green leaves, berries, and insects disappears. Water can be even harder to find because it freezes into solid ice. To stay alive, animals must adapt, which means they change their behavior or their bodies to fit the new, cold world.
Quick Check
What happens to water in a habitat when it gets very cold in the winter?
Answer
The water can freeze into ice, making it hard for animals to drink.
Animals have two main ways to deal with the lack of food: hibernation and migration. Hibernation is like a very deep sleep. Animals like bears or groundhogs find a safe spot and stay there all winter. Their heart rate slows down so they use very little energy. Migration is different. Instead of sleeping, animals like birds or butterflies travel a long distance to a warmer place where they can still find food and water. They return home only when spring arrives!
1. In the summer, Monarch butterflies live in cool places like Canada. 2. When the air turns chilly, they fly thousands of miles south to Mexico. 3. They stay in the warm sun all winter and fly back north in the spring. This is a perfect example of migration.
Quick Check
If an animal travels to a warmer place for the winter, is it hibernating or migrating?
Answer
It is migrating.
Some animals stay active all winter but change their appearance to stay safe. This is called camouflage. In the summer, an Arctic Fox has brown fur to match the dirt and rocks. But when the snow falls, its body grows a new coat of white fur! This helps the fox hide from predators and sneak up on its own food. By matching the color of the snow, the fox becomes almost invisible in its habitat.
1. During the summer, the Snowshoe Hare is brown to hide in the bushes. 2. As the days get shorter, its brain sends a signal to change its fur color. 3. By the time the first snow hits the ground, the hare is completely white. This helps it hide from hungry lynxes in the white snow.
Imagine a forest with a Bear, a Robin, and an Arctic Fox. 1. The Bear chooses hibernation and sleeps in a cave. 2. The Robin chooses migration and flies to Florida. 3. The Arctic Fox stays and uses camouflage to turn white. All three animals survived the same winter using different 'tools'!
Which word describes an animal going into a deep sleep for the winter?
Why do some animals change their fur color to white in the winter?
Migration means an animal stays in the same cold place all year long.
Review Tomorrow
Tomorrow morning, try to remember the difference between 'hibernation' (sleeping) and 'migration' (moving).
Practice Activity
Draw a picture of your favorite animal and decide if it would sleep, move, or change color to survive a snowy winter!