Video Transcript
The okapi, pictured below, is an
animal native to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Africa. Imagine an okapi is taken from its
natural habitat and placed in Antarctica. What is most likely to happen? (A) It will quickly develop new
adaptations for this habitat to survive. (B) It will become a dominant
predator and upset the ecosystem of the Antarctic. Or (C) it will not be adapted for
this new habitat and will not survive.
This question is asking about the
likely outcome of placing an animal in an environment that it is not adapted
for. To answer this question, let’s
review some key facts about adaptation and the importance of it for the survival of
organisms.
But what do we mean by the term
“adaptation?” An adaptation is a characteristic
that an organism has in order to make it well suited to its environment and give it
a better chance of survival. These adaptations develop over many
generations and can take thousands of years to occur.
An example of an adaptation is the
way a chameleon has developed the ability to change the color of its skin to hide
from predators and also reflect its mood. This type of adaptation is called
camouflage. Camouflage is an adaptation that
helps an organism conceal itself by blending in with its surroundings.
So what adaptations does an okapi
have for the environment it lives in and will these adaptations enable it to survive
in Antarctica? Okapi are mammals related to
giraffes, with a long neck and large ears. They are herbivores, feeding on
leaves, fruit, grasses, and fungi. They have therefore evolved teeth
that are adapted to cut the foliage of its diet and a long black tongue which, along
with the long neck, is useful for reaching buds and leaves in the trees.
They live in rainforests in the
Democratic Republic of Congo, which is hot and humid all year round. Their thick, oily fur helps to keep
them dry in the rain. The color of their coat works well
as camouflage, as the brown blends in with the trees and the wavy stripes on its
hind quarters and legs mimic streaks of sunlight coming through the trees.
As they are herbivores, they are
prey to carnivores in the forest. So their eyes are adapted to be
able to see well at night, and they have good hearing and a good sense of smell —
three very important adaptations to detect predators.
So would the okapi be able to
survive in Antarctica? Well, first of all let’s look at
the differences between the two environments. Antarctica is the coldest, driest,
windiest continent on Earth. And 98 percent of it is covered in
ice, which means there is little vegetation. The ice is covered in snow, so the
okapi would stand out clearly in its brown coat and be vulnerable to predators.
Where Congo is hot, averaging
around 26 degrees C, Antarctica averages around minus 50 degrees C, which is very
cold. The thick oily fur would be useful,
but because the okapi is adapted to a warm climate, it does not have the thick
insulating layer of fat essential to animals living in such extreme
temperatures. The shortage of vegetation means
there would be very little food for the okapi. If there is little food, the okapi
would not be able to lay down a layer of insulating fat to keep it warm. And it would not have enough energy
to survive.
We now have enough information to
answer our question. So let’s have another look at the
answer options.
Option (A) suggests that if the
okapi was moved to Antarctica, then it would quickly develop new adaptations for
this habitat to survive. The cold, windy, dry environment of
Antarctica is completely opposite to the okapi’s natural habitat of the warm
rainforests. This means the okapi would have to
develop many adaptations very quickly to survive, such as a change in coat color for
camouflage, thick insulating fat, and a digestive system that could cope with a
different diet. If it didn’t manage to develop
these adaptations quickly, it would die. Unfortunately, adaptations take an
extremely long time to occur, often taking millions of years. Developing new adaptations
certainly does not happen quickly, so we can rule out option (A).
Option (B) suggests that the okapi
will become a dominant predator and upset the ecosystem of the Antarctic. Okapi are herbivores and so only
eat plant matter. This means they are not predators,
and we can rule out this option.
This leaves us with the correct
answer, option (C). If an okapi is taken from its
natural habitat and placed in Antarctica, the thing that is most likely to happen is
it will not be adapted for this new habitat and will not survive.
