Animal Habitats

A habitat is the natural home of an animal or plant. It gives them the four things every living thing needs to survive: food, water, shelter, and space to live and raise young. Different animals are suited to different habitats, and a place that is perfect for one creature can be impossible for another.

Think about what makes a habitat the right home. A fish needs water all around it to breathe, so a dry desert would be deadly for a fish. A cactus stores water in its thick stem so it can survive months without rain, but it would rot in a soggy rainforest. Every habitat offers a particular mix of warmth, water, and food, and the animals living there are matched to that mix.

Habitats come in many sizes. A whole rainforest is a habitat, but so is a single rotting log, which is home to woodlice, beetles, and fungi. The exact spot where an animal lives within a habitat — such as the very top branches of a tree where a monkey feeds — is sometimes called its microhabitat.