Facts About the Woodland Animals
- Woodlands and temperate forests are both names for an ecosystem containing deciduous trees that drop their leaves in the fall, as well as coniferous, or evergreen, trees and exist between the Polar Regions and the tropics. Woodland animals experience warm summers and often very cold winters that prompt animals, such as snakes, hedgehogs and woodchucks, to hibernate in dens or underground burrows, or migrate to warmer climates.
- Abundant trees and fertile soil in woodlands provide a good home to many familiar animals. Bears, foxes, squirrels, mice, deer, badgers and rabbits dwell in North America's temperate forests, as do boars and badgers in Europe and wombats, koalas and wallabies in Australia's woodland areas, according to the Globio website. Many species of birds, both migratory and non-migratory, fly from tree to tree in the woodlands.
- Woodland trees not only provide places for animals to shelter or branches for climbing, scampering along, or perching on, they also shed leaves, evergreen needles and pinecones that create a nutrient-rich litter on the forest floor where animals and insects hide and feast on fallen pinecones, seeds, nuts, toadstools or decaying animal carcasses. Earthworms, fungi and bacteria further break down leaf litter in the complex woodland life cycle.
