Animal Strategies For Survival

         Scientists have described and named over a million different species of animals, every one of which is unique in details of both its physical structure and its behavior. Some living in the same area may overlap in their use of a shared environment. In times of hardship, however, such as food shortage in winter or dry seasons, or the stress of breeding and rearing young, each has its own way of coping that excludes all others. The first stratagem for survival is specialization. Each animal in its own niche is an unassailable specialist. Should the environment change the specialist may lose out, but in stable habitats the specialist is the winner.