# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
This is a great book explaining what a habitat is. It explains it in a way for 3rd grade students to understand by using examples and asking questions on what you as the reader needs in order to live.

# data[].attributes.body
This a a great book explaining how and why animals adapt. This book will help students learn that animals change to stay alive, by showing climate , body and habitat adaptations.

# data[].attributes.body
These are animal habitat task cards. These can be used for students to do extra or independent work. Students are able to match the animal to their habitat out of 3 choices.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Animal Habitats , Biomes , Ecosystems | Boom Cards by Teach Love Autism

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This page failed to load. Our development team has been informed of the issue.

# data[].attributes.body
Students can go to this National Geographic site. This specific page teaches about what camouflage is. It is great because it show pictures of the animals blending in to their surrounding. This can be another book to teach about a key vocabulary word.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Camouflage, also called cryptic coloration, is a defense or tactic that organisms use to disguise their appearance, usually to blend in with their surroundings. Organisms use camouflage to mask their location, identity, and movement. This allows prey to avoid predators, and for predators to sneak up on prey.

A species' camouflage depends on several factors. The physical characteristics of the organism are important. Animals with fur rely on different camouflage tactics than those with feathers or , for instance. Feathers and scales can be shed and changed fairly regularly and quickly. Fur, on the other hand, can take weeks or even months to grow in. Animals with fur are more often camouflaged by season. The arctic fox, for example, has a white coat in the winter, while its summer coat is brown.

The behavior of a species is also important. Animals that live in groups differ from those that are solitary. The stripes on a zebra, for instance, make it stand out. However, zebras are social animals, meaning they live and migrate in large groups called herds. When clustered together, it is nearly impossible to tell one zebra from another, making it difficult for predators such as lions to stalk an individual animal.

A species' camouflage is also influenced by the behavior or characteristics of its predators. If the predator is color-blind, for example, the prey species will not need to match the color of its surroundings. Lions, the main predator of zebras, are color-blind. Zebras' black-and-white camouflage does not need to blend in to their habitat, the golden savanna of central Africa.

Camouflage Tactics

Environmental and behavioral factors cause species to employ a wide variety of camouflage tactics. Some of these tactics, such as background matching and disruptive coloration, are forms of mimicry. Mimicry is when one organism looks or acts like an object or another organism.

Background matching is perhaps the most common camouflage tactic. In background matching, a species conceals itself by resembling its surroundings in coloration, form, or movement. In its simplest form, animals such as deer and squirrels resemble the "earth tones" of their surroundings. Fish such as flounder almost exactly match their speckled seafloor habitats.

More complex forms of background matching include the camouflage of the walking stick and walking leaf. These two insects, both native to southeast Asia, look and act like their namesakes. Patterns on the edge of the walking leaf's body resemble bite marks left by caterpillars in leaves. The insect even sways from side to side as it walks, to better mimic the swaying of a leaf in the breeze.

Another camouflage tactic is disruptive coloration. In disruptive coloration, the identity and location of a species may be disguised through a coloration pattern. This form of visual disruption causes predators to misidentify what they are looking at. Many butterflies have large, circular patterns on the upper part of their wings. These patterns, called eyespots, resemble the eyes of animals much larger than the butterfly, such as owls. Eyespots may confuse predators such as birds and misdirect them from the soft, vulnerable part of the butterfly's body.

Other species use coloration tactics that highlight rather than hide their identity. This type of camouflage is called warning coloration or aposematism. Warning coloration makes predators aware of the organism's toxic or dangerous characteristics. Species that demonstrate warning coloration include the larva and adult stages of the monarch butterfly. The monarch caterpillar is brightly striped with yellow, black, and white. The monarch butterfly is patterned with orange, black, and white. Monarchs eat milkweed, which is a poison to many birds. Monarchs retain the poison in their bodies. The milkweed toxin is not deadly, but the bird will vomit. The bright coloring warns predator birds that an upset stomach is probably not worth a monarch meal.

Another animal that uses aposematism is the deadly coral snake, whose brightly colored rings alert other species to its toxic venom. The coral snake's warning coloration is so well known in the animal kingdom that other, non-threatening species mimic it in order to camouflage their true identities. The harmless scarlet king snake has the same black, yellow, and red striped pattern as the coral snake. The scarlet king snake is camouflaged as a coral snake.

Countershading is a form of camouflage in which the top of an animal's body is darker in color, while its underside is lighter. Sharks use countershading. When seen from above, they blend in with the darker ocean water below. This makes it difficult for fishermen-and swimmers-to see them. When seen from below, they blend in with lighter surface water. This helps them hunt because prey species below may not see a shark until it's too late.

Countershading also helps because it changes the way shadows are created. Sunlight illuminates the top of an animal's body, casting its belly in shadow. When an animal is all one color, it will create a uniform shadow that makes the animal's shape easier to see. In countershading, however, the animal is darker where the sun would normally illuminate it, and lighter where it would normally be in shadow. This distorts the shadow and makes it harder for predators to see the animal's true shape.

Creating Camouflage

Animal species are able to camouflage themselves through two primary mechanisms: pigments and physical structures.

Some species have natural, microscopic pigments, known as biochromes, which absorb certain wavelengths of light and reflect others. Species with biochromes actually appear to change colors. Many species of octopus have a variety of biochromes that allow them to change the color, pattern, and opacity of their skin.

Other species have microscopic physical structures that act like prisms, reflecting and scattering light to produce a color that is different from their skin. The polar bear, for instance, has black skin. Its translucent fur reflects the sunlight and snow of its habitat, making the bear appear white.

Camouflage can change with the environment. Many animals, such as the arctic fox, change their camouflage with the seasons. Octopuses camouflage themselves in response to a threat. Other species, such as nudibranchs-brightly colored, soft-bodied ocean "slugs"-can change their skin coloration by changing their diet.

Chameleons change colors in order to communicate. When a chameleon is threatened, it does not change color to blend in to its surroundings. It changes color to warn other chameleons that there is danger nearby.

Some forms of camouflage are not based on coloration. Some species attach or attract natural materials to their bodies in order to hide from prey and predators. Many varieties of desert spiders, for instance, live in burrows in the sandy ground. They attach sand to the upper part of their bodies in order to blend in with their habitat.

Other animals demonstrate olfactory camouflage, hiding from prey by "covering up" their smell or masking themselves in another species' smell. The California ground squirrel, for instance, chews up and spits out rattlesnake skin, then applies the paste to its tail. The ground squirrel smells somewhat like its main predator. The rattlesnake, which senses by smell and body heat, is confused and hesitant about attacking another venomous snake.

Fast Fact

Dressing for the Part
The dresser crab gets its name for a reason: The animal picks up pieces of coral and sponge with its claws and places them on the Velcro-like hairs that cover its body. When a predator, such as a blowfish, passes by, the dresser crab freezes, blending into the seafloor. The dresser crab adapts to its environment so well that even when placed in a fish tank full of human objects, such as lace and pearl necklaces, the creature will get "dressed up" for the occasion, appearing to be just another trinket at the bottom of the tank.

Fast Fact

Ghillie Suits
Ghillie suits are a type of camouflage used by the military and hunters to blend in to thick vegetation. In addition to patterns of contrasting green or khaki, ghillie suits feature elements of foliage from the area: twigs, leaves, and branches.

In Australia, ghillie suits are nicknamed "yowies," for their resemblance to the Yowie, a mythical creature similar to Bigfoot.

Fast Fact

Khaki Camouflage
Militaries did not use camouflage until the 17th and 18th centuries. Before then, military uniforms were brightly colored, in order to intimidate the enemy.

In the 1850s, the British Army suffered massive casualties in India. (Indians were fighting for their independence.) British leaders dyed their bright white uniforms a dull, sandy tan to blend in with the desert surroundings. They called these newly colored uniforms khakis, a Hindu word for "dust."

Fast Fact

Razzle Dazzle
Razzle Dazzle, or dazzle camouflage, was a tactic used by Allied forces during World War I and World War II. Large ships, such as aircraft carriers, were painted with bold, geometric patterns. Razzle Dazzle did not camouflage the so-called "dazzle ships," but made it difficult for opposing forces to judge the size and type of the vessel.

Fast Fact

Sneaky Snakes
The scarlet king snake is harmless, but its black, yellow, and red stripes mimic the stripes of the deadly coral snake. The only real difference between the two patterns is the order of the colors. The coral snakes pattern is red-yellow-black. The scarlet king snakes pattern is red-black-yellow.

A rhyme makes the distinction easy to remember.
Red on yellow kills a fellow,
Red on black wont hurt Jack.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Camouflage, also called cryptic coloration, is a defense mechanism or tactic that organisms use to disguise their appearance, usually to blend in with their surroundings. Organisms use camouflage to mask their location, identity, and movement.

# data[].attributes.body
Here is a video, for those students who are visual learners and not into when the teacher is reading books. This video gives good examples on animals adapting and in a way kids can understand.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Animal Adaptations for Kids, Learn about physical, life cycle, and behavioral adaptations of animals

# data[].attributes.body
San Diego zoo live web cam. This shows live video of animals in there habitats. This is just a fun resource for those students who are more interested in watching the animals in their live setting.

# data[].attributes.body
This site has poems about multiple animals. These can be used as a whole class activity or they can be used for independent or small group work.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The following poems about animals are appropriate for young people. Many of these poems are especially suitable for students in elementary school.more poems for kids"The Parakeets" by Alberto BlancoThey talk all day..."The Fish" by Elizabeth BishopI caught a tremendous fish...

# data[].attributes.body
This book can be read to students, it talks about how everyone is different and to accept one another. This book can be tied into the lesson by relating how people and animals are different but we all need things to survive.

# data[].attributes.body
This is a great book. It tells about how humans and animals are alike and it tells it in a way you would never think possible. This book will have students thinking out of the box.