Arboreal
Arboreal animals are those that are particularly well adapted to spending most or all of their time in trees. They range from tiny invertebrates to huge orangutans. At the medium to large end of the size spectrum, special physical adaptations aid locomotion up and through the trees, such as prehensile tails, specially adapted claws and loose joints for easy swinging.
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Dancing sifaka 
Singing apes 
Tree kangaroos Earth Explorers
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Uakari: leap of faith
Struggling to film uakaris living high in the tree-tops, Chadden Hunter finally got a glimpse of their spectacular aerial trapeze act.
Species with this adaptation
Birds
Kea 
Common crossbill 
Wire-tailed manakin 
Great spotted woodpecker Insects
Purple emperor butterfly Mammals
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Red panda
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Doria's Tree-Kangaroo
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Matschie's tree-kangaroo
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Yellow-bellied glider
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Aye-aye
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Bald uakari
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Black-crested gibbon
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Bornean orangutan
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Chimpanzee
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Common woolly monkey
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François' langur
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Golden snub-nosed monkey
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Indri
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Verreaux's sifaka
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Western red colobus
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Yunnan snub-nosed monkey
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Dormouse
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Red squirrel
Reptiles
Black mamba 
Brown basilisk 
Frilled lizard About
Arboreal locomotion is the locomotion of animals in trees. In every habitat in which trees are present, animals have evolved to move in them. Some animals may only scale trees occasionally, while others are exclusively arboreal. These habitats pose numerous mechanical challenges to animals moving through them, leading to a variety of anatomical, behavioral and ecological consequences. Furthermore, many of these same principles may be applied to climbing without trees, such as on rock piles or mountains.
The earliest known tetrapod with specializations that adapted it for climbing trees, was Suminia, a synapsid of the late Permian, about 260 million years ago.
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Other Behavioural pattern Adaptations
- Able to aestivate
- Able to hibernate
- Arboreal
- Capable of torpor
- Fossorial
- Nocturnal
- Nomadic
- Parasitic
- Troglophilic
Habitats where this adaptation is useful
Elsewhere on the web
- Arboreal locomotion (wikipedia.org)
Site links
BBC links
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