Animal Adaptations

Nocturnality is the animal adaptation that allows organisms to stay active during the night, while dormant during the day. This adaptation is an effective way to avoid dangerous predators and competition for food and resources. As the Wet Tropics - Tropical Topics research article describes, there is a variety of species that practice nocturnality for different species. For example, pythons prefer hunting during nighttime; since they depend on their sense of smell from heat sensing, sunlight restricts their ability to maximize captured prey. Owls also prefer hunting during nighttime, as their hearing and auditory system grants them with the ability to easily obtain nutrients in the dark. Overall, regardless of the individual benefits of nocturnality for specific species, nocturnality provides species with the advantage of lower competition. This image was provided by the Biodiversity Atlas of LA.

Mimicry is an evolved animal adaptation that allows species to imitate the characteristics of another species. This is a protective device that is advantageous to species of the rainforest biome, as organisms are able to avoid predation by resembling a different species. The Proceedings of the Royal Society conducted a study about the mimicry patterns of butterflies in the Amazon rainforest, a tropical rainforest biome. Based on this study, mimicry serves as defense against predators for butterflies of the Amazon rainforest through aposematism, which is a form of warning coloration that advertises danger towards their predators. According to the National Library of Medicine, the Heliconius butterfly uses aposematism mimicry to increase their survival rates against predators of the tropical rainforest, such as jacamars. This image was provided by Cambridge University and published by Heliconius.org.