Animals
Animals are from the Kingdom Animalia also known as Metazoa from a primary group of largely multicellular also known as eukaryotic organisms. As they mature their body blue print becomes established although a few go thru a process of development later in their life span.
For the most part animals can move on impulse and apart from one another which is defined as mobile. Animals must ingest other organic matter for nourishment to survive.
The Latin word animalie came from anima which means vital breath or soul and in its everyday use does not include humans as members in the Kingdom Animalia.
Animals are set apart from algae, plants and fungi because their cell walls are not rigid. Their embryos pass through a process called blastula stage where the embryo consists of a sphere of 128 cells forming the outside with a large fluid center space called the blastocoel. This process is also unique or exclusive to animals.
Animal bodies are divided into different tissue structures, muscles which contract and control movement, nerves that process and send signals to communicate commands and information, digestion which is the consumption of food for energy and growth with one or two openings to the system.
Most animals go through sexual reproduction and many are capable of asexual reproduction which is a process of reproducing without mating. Animals feed on other living things either directly or indirectly and are therefore called heterotrophs.
When it comes to eating or feeding they are placed into these subgroups:
- Carnivores
- Herbivores
- Omnivores
- Parasites
