Like animals, plants inherit ways of responding to their surroundings. Plant stems and leaves grow toward sunlight. Roots grow down, toward water. Some plants have leaves that close up if something touches them.

An acquired trait is a characteristic that a living thing gets during its lifetime. To acquire something means to get it.

Many acquired traits are learned behaviors, or ways of acting or skills that an animal learns or develops during its lifetime. Humans and other animals learn from their parents and from experience. Young chimpanzees learn from adults to use sticks as tools for getting food. Humans learn to use fishing poles and other tools to get food, too. A mother bear may show her cubs how to fish or find berries for food. A bird may teach its baies how to fly. A young horse may learn to stay away from an electric fence after it gets a shock.

You were born knowing how to use your voice. But you were not born knowing how to speak words or read. You learned to speak by listening to your parents and other people. An adult taught you to read. Knowing how to play the guitar is a learned behavior. Learned behaviors and other acquired traits are not passsed from parents to their young. A dog that learns to fetch a tennis ball will not have puppies that are born knowing how to fetch. If you learn how to ride a bike, your children will not be born knowing how to do that. They will have to learn, just as you did. The table below gives examples of instincts and learned behaviors. You may think of examples to add.