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.

When habitats are damaged, animals can lose their homes. Cutting down forests, draining wetlands, and polluting rivers all take away the food, water, and shelter that animals depend on. That is why protecting forests, oceans, and wild places helps protect the animals that live in them too.

Some animals change their behaviour with the seasons because their habitat changes too. In winter, when food is hard to find and the cold is fierce, certain animals hibernate — they fall into a very deep sleep, slowing their heartbeat and breathing right down until spring returns and food is plentiful again.