Birds are adapted to live/living in their environment

[joham]

Birds are adapted to live/living in their environment.
In the above sentence 'live' and 'living' are both correctly used, but do they mean the same thing?

And can we also use 'looking' in the following sentence?
The cactus plants called living stones are adapted to look/looking(?) like real stones.

 

[MikeNewYork]

In the first, both can be correct, but the second is more natural.

In the second, only the first works for me.

 

[emsr2d2]

I would much prefer "have adapted" in both. "Are adapted" makes it sound like someone else adapted them, rather than it being a result of evolution.

 

[MikeNewYork]

Well, in a sense, the individual animals adapted to the environment and thus "are adapted".

 

[Rover_KE]

Welcome to the forum, Urban wheel.:-D

I know your post was well-meant, but I'm afraid it didn't contribute to the thread topic and contained mistakes which would not have been helpful to the original poster, joham.

Please feel free to post again after reading the rules and guidelines — especially the following:

You are welcome to answer questions posted in the Ask a Teacher forum as long as your suggestions, help, and advice reflect a good understanding of the English language. If you are not a teacher, you will need to state that clearly in your post. Please note, all posts are moderated by our in-house language experts, so make sure your suggestions, help, and advice provide the kind of information an international language teacher would offer. If not, and your posts do not contribute to the topic in a positive way, they will be subject to deletion.

 

[joham]

Thank you so much for your great help, Mike, emsr and Rover. (The Thank and Like buttons won't work again on my page though I've clicked on them many many times. It might be because the foreign pages load very very slowly on my computer.)