The place where an animal lives, called its habitat, must supply the animal with what it needs to survive. Each habitat must provide necessities such as food, water, and shelter.

Ants make complex tunnels part of their home.

One reason there are so many forms of life on Earth is that it offers so many different habitats. Some habitats are harsh, with difficult living conditions. For example, some animals can live in places with very little water. Others can live at ocean depths where the water pressure would crush even a submarine.

Many living beings adapt, or change and adjust, to the conditions around them. Some plants and animals live in places where most other living beings would not survive. These unusual habitats, or niches, allow creatures to survive in a sometimes dangerous world.

My visit to my grandfather’s farm last summer surprised me. I had the idea, or impression, that Granddad led a quiet, simple life in the open air. I soon discovered that life on the farm was not so simple.

I usually think of noisy machinery as something you’d find mostly in the city, but Granddad had a different tool, or implement, for almost everything he did on the farm. He used devices such as an electric saw for cutting wood and a gas-powered machine for digging fence post holes. I expected quiet on a farm, but there was plenty of noise with all the machines.