Biological and Behavioral Adaptation

Imagine a world where it is dark and there are extreme temperatures that is what it is like in the deep sea. Some creatures have learned to adapt to living in the deep sea. Two adaptations that allow deep sea creatures to survive in extreme environments are biological and behavioral.

The first adaptation that allows deep sea creatures to survive in extreme environments are biological adaptations. The yeti crabs adapted by growing tiny hairs on their arms and chests. “… mineral eating bacteria might grow on the crabs hairs and that the crabs might scoop up the bacteria.

” This allows them to be able to get their food at the bottom of the ocean. This biological adaptation helps the yeti crabs to survive because it gives them a way to get their food and eat it. Zombie worms also have biological adaptations. The male zombie worms never leave the female’s side. “Males, which live out their lives in the gelatinous tubes inside each female, never develop past larvae.” This helps them transfer their energy to finding food instead of finding a mate. Zombie worms also have adaptations in their skin, that allows them to get to the bone marrow in whale carcass for food. This adaptation helps with survival because it allows the worms to be able to get food.

The second adaptation that allows deep sea creatures to survive in extreme environments are behavioral adaptations. A behavioral adaptation for the yeti crabs is the way that they move their arms. “Yeti crabs gathered in heaps around the thermal vents, white crabs wave their claws in unison.” This helps them catch their food through the thermal vents. The yeti crabs are so small that it would take a lot of them to fill the vent. The vents are a good source of food for the yeti crabs. This behavioral adaptation helps the crabs to survive because it gives them food to eat and they don’t have to move from where they already live. The squids have the ability to choose where they want to live. “[Squid] rarely swims in polar or tropical seas- from distribution of specimens washed ashore. ” they also “probably prefers continental shelves and island slopes.” The squids also choose to live about “500-1000 meters below the ocean surface.” This behavioral adaptation helps the squids to survive because they become comfortable where they live and they don’t have to worry about predators because they live so far down in the ocean.

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