Animal Adaptations Fourth Grade

Body parts that help an animal meet its needs for survival


Examples: beaks, fur, whiskers, claws, teeth

Ways that an animal behaves or acts to meet its needs for survival in its environment

Example: instinct, learned behavior, migration, hibernation

An animal's color or pattern that helps it blend in with its environment

Example: A snowshoe hare's white fur during the winter help it to blend it with the snow to protect itself from predators

An adaptation in which animal looks like another animal or object.

Example: A viceroy butterfly mimics or looks like a monarch butterfly to protect itself from predators

A behavior that an animal is born with


Example: Birds build their nests

Behaviors that animals learn or observe that help them to survive in their environment.

Example: Tiger cubs learn to hunt by watching their mothers hunt.

A period when an animal goes into a long, deep "sleep."


Example: Bears hibernate during the winter.

The movement of one group of a type of animal from one region to another and back again

Example: Birds migrate to the south in the fall and return to the north in the spring to lay their eggs and raise their young.