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Covering the Earth
What would
happen if all plants and animals ate the same food? There wouldn't be
enough food to go around, right? Instead, living things have evolved
into many species, or kinds, that like to eat all sorts of things.
Living things change so they can use everything in
their habitat. Australia's mammals are marsupials, but they live much
like mammals in the rest of the world do. Some burrow like rodents, some
eat ants like anteaters, some hunt like cats, and some live in the trees
and eat leaves like monkeys. Since they didn't have to compete with
other mammals, all of these marsupials were able to evolve and survive.
Honeycreeper is the common name for several kinds
of tropical birds. The first Hawaiian honeycreeper flew to the Hawaiian
Islands probably five million years ago. Since then, new species of
honeycreepers have evolved there. Each has a different kind of beak, as
shown in the pictures below,
good for eating a certain kind of food. Since all the birds do not
compete for the same food, there is more for everyone!
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