Natural sciences Year 5: Animals, food and habitats: the body, the diet, the web of life
Natural sciences, Year 5 (Portugal): An animal's body, covering and way of moving fit where it lives; what it eats depends on its habitat, and each habitat has its own plants and animals that depend on one another.
A body fitted to its environment
Animals have body shape, covering and organs of movement that fit where they live. In water, fish have a streamlined body, scales and fins for swimming. In the air, birds have wings and feathers. On land, many mammals have legs and fur. Reptiles have dry scales that reduce water loss, and amphibians have moist skin and live near water. Look at the body of an animal and you can guess a lot about its home.
What an animal eats and where it lives
By diet, herbivores eat plants, carnivores eat other animals and omnivores eat both. The diet is linked to the habitat: where there is plenty of grass and leaves live herbivores, and carnivores live where there is prey. It is also linked to the body: flat teeth for grinding plants in herbivores, pointed canines for tearing meat in carnivores. In Geography, the vegetation of each region tells you what food is available.
Analysing a habitat: the montado
The montado of the Alentejo is a pasture with cork oaks and holm oaks. Step 1, flora: cork oak, holm oak and grasses. Step 2, fauna and diet: the wild rabbit eats grasses (herbivore), the jay eats acorns and insects (omnivore) and the fox hunts rabbits. Step 3, links: the jay buries acorns and forgets some, which can sprout into new oaks. Step 4: conclude: plants and animals in a habitat depend on one another.
Animals do not change their body on purpose
A common idea is «the bird grew wings because it needed to fly». Individual animals do not change their body because they want or need to. Features are inherited from parents. In a species, the individuals with features that are more useful in that environment survive more and leave more offspring, and over many generations those features become common. That is why bodies fit habitats, without anyone planning it.
Biodiversity close to you
Biodiversity is the variety of living things in a place. Portugal has very different habitats: the montado of the Alentejo, the laurel forest of Madeira, the Ria Formosa in the Algarve and the mountains of the north. In each one, plants and animals are linked: bees pollinate flowers, birds eat fruit and spread seeds, trees give shelter. Find in a garden or park one plant and one animal that are linked, and describe how.
Test what you learned
A fish has a streamlined body, scales and fins. Which environment does this suggest?
- a) A dry, hot desert
- b) The air, flying
- c) Water, swimming
Correct answer: c) Water, swimming — Right: a streamlined body and fins let a fish swim easily in water.
In the chain grass → rabbit → fox, how do you classify the rabbit and the fox by their diet?
- a) Rabbit: herbivore; fox: carnivore (in this chain)
- b) Rabbit: carnivore; fox: herbivore
- c) Both are herbivores, because they live among plants
Correct answer: a) Rabbit: herbivore; fox: carnivore (in this chain) — Right: the rabbit eats grass (a plant) and the fox eats the rabbit (an animal).
Why do birds have wings?
- a) Because birds needed to fly, so each one grew wings
- b) Because features are inherited, and birds with useful features survived and left more offspring
- c) Because each bird grows wings by trying hard to fly
Correct answer: b) Because features are inherited, and birds with useful features survived and left more offspring — Right: over many generations, the useful features became common in the species.
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