Grasslands cover vast amounts of territory within the interior of many continents. A vital biome, grasslands support a tremendous amount of biodiversity. Clearly, they contain a large amount of trapped sunlight when you consider how large some of the organisms can get from feeding off of the grasses. Elephants, bison, herds of antelope (to name a few) thrive in this environment. That is, of course, when their environment is left alone. This habitat has been disrupted by humans for as long as humans have settled there. Because of the fertile soil provided by the grass, humans have used this land for agriculture. This limits the space for animal herds and it can also destroy the soil for future generations. Luckily, many grassland animals are being protected.
The North American Bison, for example, was hunted to the brink of extinction by the early 1900's. Due to conservation efforts, the bison's population has bounced back, going from under a thousand to nearly two hundred thousand.
This link holds information about the bison. Click on the link to watch the video about bison from the documentary "Planet Earth."
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Pick one of the animals listed and write a comment about three adaptations that the animal has that allows it to survive in the grassland.
16 comments:
The Prairie Mole Rat
males cannot fly but their wings emit a humming to attract females.
They Are Nocturnal, so they can avoid predators, and catch more.
They have forelimbs for burrowing.
The American Bison has several adaptations to help it survive. One is that it rids itself of parasites by either rolling in mud or chewing its cud, (which rhymes.) They also tend to live in large herds which could help protect them. Finally, they live in the perfect biome for them, giving the herds large grazing areas.
The American Bison survive because they can digest grass and other plains plants. Their large size lets them store large amounts of fat. They also have horns for defense.
The Bobolink has adaptations to survive. Here are three of them.
The Bobolink uses its long nails to grab on to weeds for its nest
It also builds its nest hidden to protect their eggs
The male Bobolinks appearence is used to attract females.
Source: http://www.wbu.com/chipperwoods/photos/bobolink.htm
Karner Blue Butterfly
The adaptations are the females color on their wings that can help them blend into their surroundings. Also they are a little stationary and don’t go very far for food for their larvae. They feed on lupine plant. One last adaptation is that ants protect the larvae, which means the butterflies can live longer and can’t be eaten by predators
some adaptations to the butterfly are:
1-the orange spots on the female looks like eyes, so it defends aganst preditors
2-ants protect it from preditors
3-it dosen't travel far from its birth spot
I did the prairie mole cricket
1. it front legs are adapt for digging into the ground
2. males wings call females during mating seasons
3. females can fly to help escape danger on land and so they can travel better
Three adaption’s of the prairie mole cricket.
1) all of the crickets have forelimbs made for burrowing.
2) They sing so that the female are crickets can find them so that they can mate.
3) Live under ground and more common to find when they come out to mate during the spring.
Three adaption’s of the prairie mole cricket.
1) all of the crickets have forelimbs made for burrowing.
2) They sing so that the female are crickets can find them so that they can mate.
3) Live under ground and more common to find when they come out to mate during the spring.
prairie mole crickets.
Males have fore wings modified for calls which helps attract mates
males can build specialized acoustic burrows that amplifies there singing.
females can fly silently so predators can't hear them
I did the Blanding's Turtle:
- It is an omnivore, which gives it a wider variety of food to consume
- It has a long neck, so it can breathe air while in shallow water
- It also has claws on his front feet along with webbed feet, which helps with swimming and maneuvering on land
the bison used tolive all over america but were almost hunted to exstinsthon. Ther making a come back though. One of ther adapthons is that they live in herds which makes it harder for predators eat them.
The blandings turtle has many ways to adapt to the great plains. One is that it is very small. It can escaped from preditors easily. Another adaptation is that they are aquatic, so they can escape from the land creatures. Lastly, they lay a lot of eggs, so their species can survive.
Sorry, Dan. I accidently pressed enter. The last comment was me, but, I didn't fill in the name space.
The Blanding's Turtle has three main advantages to survive. First and perhaps the most important, they can stay underwater for hours at a time, effectively avoiding land-based animals. Their small stature is another advantage, making them more elusive and harder to spot for predators. Last but not least, the females lay about 12 eggs at a time, which gives a greater chance to keep the population up.
Hello,nice post thanks for sharing?. I just joined and I am going to catch up by reading for a while. I hope I can join in soon.
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