ANIMAL HABITATS 7 



These much restricted habitats are spoken of 

 as habitat niches and they may be indeed tiny; 

 during the tropical dry season, mosquito larvae 

 are to be found in the forest in the tiny amounts 

 of water held in leaves that chance to be upturned 

 and cup-shaped. Or again there exists a large 

 number of so-called mining insects that obtain 

 their food during their larval life by burrowing 

 between the upper and lower surfaces of leaves, 

 and there are many other animals whose small 

 habitats are limited to such detailed niches as 

 those furnished by the stamens of flowers. 



The animals limited to micro-niches must 

 themselves be tiny, and in general the larger the 

 animal the larger the niche occupied, but large 

 animals may occupy small niches for considerable 

 periods of time. Thus, in hibernation a bear 

 may be restricted to a small niche in his forest 

 habitat; or during the dry season in the Panama 

 rain-forest, an alligator-like Jacare may spend 

 his time in a shallow pool scarcely larger than he 

 is long. 



Such relationships are exceptional and, in 

 general, the relation between size of available 

 habitat and size of animals is such that, even in 

 the same species, those with the larger amount of 

 space at their disposal tend to grow to larger 

 size. The belief is widespread that fishes grow 

 larger in large lakes than in small ones and, de- 



