All animals live in habitats, which provide food, water, and shelter in order for one to survive. However, there is more to survival than just the habitat. Animals also depend on their physical characteristics to help them obtain food, keep safe, build homes, withstand weather, and attract mates. Their physical charateristics are called physical adaptations, which do not develop during an animal's life but over many generations.
Reptiles-Reptilia-American Alligator
The American Alligator is native only to the southerneastern United States, where it inhabits wetlands, which holds the key to their continued long-term survival. Alligators depend on the wetlands, and in some ways the wetlands depend on them. The American Alligator is a predator at the top of the food chain, which help control the population of rodents and other animals that might exhaust the wetland vegetation.
Birds-Aves-snowy owl
The vertebrate class Aves includes the birds, an extremely distinctive and successful clade. They are descended from the dinosaurs but birds have evolved remarkable characteristics for flight, where as they have a unique "one-way" breathing system, light yet strong hollow bones, a skeleton in which many bones are fused or lost, powerful flight muscles, and feathers.
Mammal-Mammalia-Cheetah/Otter
Mammals are a class of warm-blooded vertebrate animals that have milk-secreting organs for feeding the young. This class include human beings, apes, many four-legged animals, whales, dolphins, and bats. The different species of mammals have evolved to live in nearly all terrestrial and aquatic habitats on the planet. They inhabit every terrestrial community, from deserts, tropical rainforests to polar icecaps. Most are arboreal, spending most or all of their time in the forest environment, however, others are partially aquatic; living near lakes, streams, or the coastlines of oceans.