A4.

05S

Student

Activity 4.5 Adaptations

Purpose
z

To communicate knowledge and ideas about adaptation.

To develop presentation skills in combining a range of media and exhibits.

An exhibition on adaptation
In this activity you will work in collaboration with other students to produce an exhibit about a
named organism.
Your exhibit will form part of a whole-class exhibition featuring a range of different organisms. The
aim of the exhibition is to communicate the concept of adaptation. Some examples of adaptations
are described on pages 36 of this activity sheet with questions for you to answer.
Before the exhibition
Discuss as a class:
what might be the features of a successful exhibit?
how many students will prepare each exhibit?
how and where you will most effectively set up the whole exhibition?
who you will invite to see it?
how each student will most effectively learn from others exhibits?
Are there any health and safety implications in setting up the exhibition?
Planning your exhibit
Use the questions below to plan your groups exhibit and allocate tasks for your group.
What are the aims of your exhibit?
These may be, for example, to communicate information using a variety of media, to communicate
specific points about the subject content, communicate to a specific audience etc.
What are the main adaptations to be featured?
Think about the organisms environment, and how the adaptation helps them to survive.
What objects or media will best illustrate the main points you are trying to communicate?
You could use real whole or part specimens, microscope slides, drawings, photos, looped video
clips, posters, PowerPoint, text labels, leaflets etc.
What type of space is available for your exhibit?
Draw a plan of your exhibit to fit the space you have been allocated, showing what you will include.
Annotate the plan with details of each aspect, for example, any objects, photos, labels or text to be
used. A planning form like the one shown over the page would help you organise these details.

Salters-Nuffield Advanced Biology, Pearson Education Ltd 2008. University of York Science Education Group.
This sheet may have been altered from the original.

1 of 7

A4.05S

Student

Activity 4.5 Adaptations

Add to your planning form details of who is responsible for each part of the exhibit. One additional
task for your group is to make an evaluation form for other students to evaluate your exhibit. The
evaluation should refer to your aims.
Table 1 Example of an exhibition planning form.

Planning form
Title of exhibit:
Aims of the exhibition:
Date, time and venue:
Name of item

Description of item

Evaluation
form

A form which collects feedback on

whether the exhibit has
successfully fulfilled its aims

Who is
responsible?

Deadline for
work to be
completed

Leave plenty of time to set your exhibit up, and make sure you know who is responsible for
dismantling it at the end of the exhibition.

Salters-Nuffield Advanced Biology, Pearson Education Ltd 2008. University of York Science Education Group.
This sheet may have been altered from the original.

2 of 7

A4.05S

Student

Activity 4.5 Adaptations

Barn owls
Hearing

Barn owls catch their prey mostly voles and mice in complete darkness, using hearing alone.
Birds have no external ears like a mammal just simple openings. The ear openings of the barn owl
are hidden in the disc of feathers around the face (Figure 1). The left ear hole is slightly higher and
at a different angle from the right one. When it hears potential prey, the barn owl tilts its head and
moves the ruff of feathers surrounding the facial disc.
Q1 Suggest why the barn owl has a disc of feathers surrounding its facial disc.
Q2 Explain why the owl moves its head when it hears prey.
Q3 Give a reason why an owl has two ears.
Q4 What selective advantage is there for the owl:

in having two ears

in moving its head when it hears prey.

Figure 1 Face of a young barn owl.

Feathers

The flight of an owl is very quiet. It achieves this by having very soft feathers. In addition, the
leading edge of the first primary feather on each wing is serrated (Figure 2). This helps to reduce
the turbulence caused by the wing as it cuts through the air. (Think of the noise made by a swans
wings for comparison).

Figure 2 The serrations of the first primary

feather of a barn owl

Figure 3 Feather structure

Q5 Give two advantages of an owls silent flight.

Look at Figure 3, or try pulling the vanes of a birds flight feather apart. What do you notice? Pull it
firmly until the barbs separate. Now smooth the feather back into shape until the barbs rejoin.

Salters-Nuffield Advanced Biology, Pearson Education Ltd 2008. University of York Science Education Group.
This sheet may have been altered from the original.

3 of 7

A4.05S

Activity 4.5 Adaptations

Student

Use a hand lens or microscope to study the fine structure of the barbs. To get the best view through
a hand lens, hold the lens close to one eye, then bring the object nearer until it comes in to focus. Do
not lean over the object, but hold it up in a good light source.
Q6 Suggest the function of the feather barbs.
Q7 What advantage is this structural adaptation to the bird?

Colour

The barn owls spotted, buff-coloured back may help to camouflage the female when on the nest, as
this species often nests in hollows in trees lined with yellowish rotting wood.
Barn owls are found worldwide. They have even reached the Galapagos Islands, 400 miles off the
coast of Ecuador. The Galapagos barn owl (Figure 4) looks a bit different from the British one.

Figure 4 A Galapagos barn owl. This barn owl was in a restaurant with an open veranda on Santa Cruz island. Although
completely wild, it was nesting above the bar next to the speakers of the sound system and had no fear of people.
Normally the owls would nest in caves within the dark volcanic rock that makes up the island.

Q8 Suggest reasons for the differences in appearance between a British and a Galapagos barn owl.

Eggs and incubation

Barn owls feed on small mammals, especially field voles. Field voles vary in numbers from year to
year, with a peak population every fourth year, followed by a crash. The owls can not predict how
many voles there will be to feed their young when they start laying their eggs.
Many birds start to incubate their eggs only after the whole clutch is laid, so the chicks all hatch at
about the same time. Barn owls start to incubate as soon as the first egg is laid. One egg is laid
every 2-3 days, so the young hatch at 2-3 day intervals, and the chicks differ considerably in size
(Figure 5). This staggered egg laying is controlled by hormones.

Salters-Nuffield Advanced Biology, Pearson Education Ltd 2008. University of York Science Education Group.
This sheet may have been altered from the original.

4 of 7

A4.05S

Student

Activity 4.5 Adaptations

A

Figure 5 A Four newly-ringed barn owl chicks. Notice the range of sizes. These owls are sleepy because it is daytime.
B Older barn owl young (owlets) in a nest-box, nearly ready to fly. These owlets were produced in a good
vole year, and four have survived. By this stage they show some anxiety and make themselves as tall and imposing as
possible (and make a hissing noise). Two are trying to hide behind the others.

Q9

If it turned out to be a bad vole year, which of the owlets would survive? Why?

Q10 What might happen in a bad vole year, if all the owlets were the same size?

Adaptations of the feet

Figure 6 The third toe of a barn owl, seen from below

Q11 Use Figure 6, and your biological knowledge, to suggest how the middle toe of a barn owl is adapted
to its functions.

Types of owl adaptation

Q12 We can classify adaptations as physiological (P), behavioural (B), or anatomical (A). State which of
these three types of adaptation each of the following exemplifies.
a
b
c
d
e
f

Good hearing
Feather structure
Competing for food
Laying eggs at 2-3 day intervals
Incubating immediately the first egg is laid
Toe structure

Mimicry
Many of us have been stung by a wasp and have learnt to associate yellow and black stripes with a
sting. We therefore tend to avoid touching any insect with this colour pattern. But do all insects
with yellow and black stripes have a sting? The answer is no. Many insects mimic the bee and wasp
colouring but are quite harmless. These include many kinds of hoverflies, You may see these in a
garden, collecting pollen from flowers.
Q13 What advantage does a hoverfly gain from mimicking the colour pattern of a wasp?

Stinging species are called the models. The harmless insects which look like the models are called
the mimics. The models are mostly those with wasp or bee at the end of their name. Mimicry
is an anatomical adaptation, but is closely linked to the behaviour of the predator. In this case the
Salters-Nuffield Advanced Biology, Pearson Education Ltd 2008. University of York Science Education Group.
This sheet may have been altered from the original.

5 of 7

A4.05S

Activity 4.5 Adaptations

Student

behaviour (avoiding insects with warning colouration) is probably not inherited, but is learned by
experience, so it is not a genetic adaptation.
Q14 Suggest what might happen if the mimics became much more common than the models.
Q15 Many plants and fungi are poisonous, yet they do not usually have warning colouration. Suggest why
plants and fungi do not usually warn herbivores in this way.
Note: Some poisonous plants do have colours that may be warning to herbivores, for example henbane has purple veins
on its flowers, and the famous poisonous fly agaric toadstool, Amanita muscaria, is red with white spots. But most
poisonous plants and fungi have no warning colouration at all. The deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna) purple
flowers look uninviting to humans, but the berries look quite tasty. Eating two or three berries would kill you!

Carnivorous plants
Carnivorous plants, such as sundews, pitcher plants and bladderworts, obtain their mineral nutrients
such as nitrates by trapping and digesting small animals such as insects. They are well adapted
to their habitat.
Q16 Suggest where carnivorous plants might grow, and why.
Q17 Which molecules in an animals body will provide nitrates to the plant when digested?
Q18 Suggest how the plants are able to break down all the molecules in the bodies of the captured
animals.
Q19 Carnivorous plants do not grow in grassland and scrubland in the general countryside. Suggest why not.
Q20 Describe how does a pitcher plant trap its prey.
Q21 Suggest why carnivorous plants usually have their flowers on a long stalk.

Try this
You can buy commercially grown carnivorous plants, such as sun-dew, venus fly-trap or pitcher plants. You
can also buy seeds of some of these plants. Try growing them yourself. You will find out a lot about how they
are adapted to their niche.
You will need a humid place to grow them, such as a shady kitchen window ledge, and a supply of insects to
feed them for example a colony of fruit flies or crickets. You must not give them fertilizer or even tap water
rain water is best.

Spiders web
A spider can construct a very complex sticky web using silk glands in its abdomen. Many spiders never see
their parents, so this is a genetically inherited behavioural adaptation. They do not learn by copying the
behaviour of other spiders. A garden spider can destroy her damaged web and make a new one in less than
one hour. She usually makes a new one every day (Figure 7).

Figure 7 Web of a garden spider

Q22 Explain how the production of a web helps the spider survive.
Q23 Suggest why a spider eats the old web as she removes it to build a new one.

Salters-Nuffield Advanced Biology, Pearson Education Ltd 2008. University of York Science Education Group.
This sheet may have been altered from the original.

6 of 7

A4.05S

Activity 4.5 Adaptations

Student

Niches and adaptations True or false quiz?

For each of the following statements decide if it is true or false.
1

Mice have adapted to living in frozen food stores by growing extra thick fur.

Hedgehogs living near roads have stopped rolling up in to a ball when they are alarmed helping them
to avoid being squashed by vehicles.

Some arctic fish have antifreeze in their blood.

There is a species of nematode worm which has only been found in German felt beer mats.

Midwife toads carry and hatch their spawn on their backs.

Hardys swift lays its eggs on the males back in the air, and the young are reared entirely in the air.

A fungus which grows on old cow pats is able to fire its spores accurately towards chinks of light
between the grass blades.

When alarmed, the woodcock (a wading bird) flies off carrying its young between its legs.

When plaice are put in an aquarium with chess boards covering the bottom, the plaice change their
colour pattern to mimic the black and white squares.

10 Chameleons can swivel each eye independently when searching for insect prey.
11 A shark can detect blood in the water at the concentration of ten drops of blood in a large swimming
pool.
12 Racing pigeons use landmarks to find their way home. Studies of marked birds have shown that they
follow the M25 and turn off at major junctions leading towards their home.
13 The wild arum produces heat by metabolising starch in part of its flower, called the spadix. The heat
helps to disperse a smell which attracts pollinating insects.
14 The strangler fig has been known to entwine sleeping people in Africa and squeeze them to death.
15 Jellyfish have specialised cells which shoot out a poison dart, paralysing their prey.
16 Starfish digest their prey by turning their stomachs inside out.
17 If two species of sponge are mixed together in a blender, they can reassemble themselves into sponges
of separate species.
18 Slime moulds live as single amoeba-like cells most of their lives, but when they reproduce sexually all
the cells join up to form a sporangium.
19 Some bacteria glow in the dark using an enzyme called luciferase.
20 Tropical fireflies flash in the dark to attract mates. Some species flash in unison like Christmas lights,
helping to make the signals more effective.

Salters-Nuffield Advanced Biology, Pearson Education Ltd 2008. University of York Science Education Group.
This sheet may have been altered from the original.

7 of 7