Improvements Made to My Organism - Post 9

My initial idea for the organism is as depicted in Sketch A above. The organism has fairly long and slender legs and has outer covering of hair.  As my organism is a tertiary consumer, my initial thought was that the long legs would allow the organism to chase its prey at high speed. The organism also has a longer neck to allow it to spot its prey from a distance.

Given the harsh conditions of the Tundra biome as detailed above, I had to make the following improvements to the adaptive features of my organism:

1)         Improvement to the limbs

·            The limbs are shortened so that the organism is closer to the ground to minimize the impact of the strong wind.

·            With the shortened limb and in order to maintain the speed for the organism to hunt its prey, the organism needs to have strong and muscular limbs.

·            Given the icy surface of the Tundra Biome, the organism needs to have stiff hairs on the sole of the feet in order to have better friction so that the organism can chase its prey without slipping.

2) Shortened the neck of the organism

·            To adapt to the strong wind condition of the Tundra biome, I decided to shorten the neck of my organism to reduce wind resistance and to minimize body heat loss.

·            Moreover, the organism does not need to have long neck as the pond habitat in the Tundra biome does not have large and tall trees as the vegetation at the habitat are mainly low and non-woody shrubs.

·            As Tundra biome experiences prolonged dark winters, I feel that having sharp eyesight with excellent night vision is an important adaptation for the organism to spot its prey.

3)  Improvement to the body covering

·            Given the low temperature of the habitat, I changed the outer covering of the organism from hair to thick fur so as to better trap air to minimize body heat loss.

The above-mentioned improvements are shown in Sketch B above. 

In addition, further improvements were made to my organism based on inputs and suggestions from my group members. As my organism is a tertiary consumer, in order to hunt its prey more effectively, I added sharp horn, canine teeth and sharp claws to my organism.