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CONTENTS

TOPIC NAME PAGE NO.

Introduction 03-04

The Animal Kingdom 04-07

Animal Diversity 07-11

Form and Function 12-16

Ecology and Habitats 17-19

Evolution and 19-21

Paleontology

Conclusion 21

Reference 22
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Animal, (kingdom Animalia), any of a

group of multicellular eukaryotic organisms (i.e., as distinct
from bacteria, their deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, is contained
in a membrane-bound nucleus). They are thought to have
evolved independently from the unicellular eukaryotes. Animals
differ from members of
the two other kingdoms
of multicellular
eukaryotes, the plants
(Plantae) and the fungi
(Mycota), in fundamental
variations
in morphology and
physiology. This is
largely because animals
have developed muscles
and hence mobility, a
characteristic that has
stimulated the further
development of tissues and organ systems.

Animals dominate human conceptions of life on Earth not

simply by their size, abundance, and sheer diversity but also by
their mobility, a trait that humans share. So integral is
movement to the conception of animals that sponges, which
lack muscle tissues, were long considered to be plants. Only
after their small movements were noticed in 1765 did the
animal nature of sponges slowly come to be recognized.

In size animals are outdone on land by plants, among

whose foliage they may often hide. In contrast, the
photosynthetic algae, which feed the open oceans, are usually
too small to be seen, but marine animals range to the size of
whales. Diversity of form, in contrast to size, only impinges
peripherally on human awareness of life and thus is less
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noticed. Nevertheless, animals represent three-quarters or

more of the species on Earth, a diversity that reflects the
flexibility in feeding, defense, and reproduction gives them.
Animals follow virtually every known mode of living that has
been described for the creatures of Earth.

Animals move in pursuit of food, mates, or refuge from

predators, and this movement attracts attention and interest,
particularly as it becomes apparent that the behaviour of some
creatures is not so very different. Other than out of simple
curiosity, humans study animals to learn about themselves,
who are a very recent product of the evolution of animals.

The Animal Kingdom: Animals evolved from

unicellular eukaryotes. The presence of a nuclear membrane in
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eukaryotes permits separation of the two phases

of protein synthesis: transcription (copying) of
deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) in the nucleus and translation
(decoding) of the message into protein in the cytoplasm.
Compared to the structure of the bacterial cell, this gives
greater control over which proteins are produced. Such control
permits specialization of cells, each with identical DNA but with
the ability to control finely which genes successfully send copies
into the cytoplasm. Tissues and organs can thus evolve. The
semirigid cell walls found in plants and fungi, which constrain
the shape and hence the diversity of possible cell types, are
absent in animals. If they were present, nerve and muscle cells,
the focal point of animal mobility, would not be possible.

A Definition of Animals: A characteristic of

members of the animal kingdom is the presence of muscles and
the mobility they afford. Mobility is an important influence on
how an organism obtains nutrients for growth and
reproduction.
Animals typically
move, in one way or
another, to feed on
other living
organisms, but some
consume dead
organic matter or
even
photosynthesize by
housing symbiotic
algae. The type of
nutrition is not as
decisive as the type of mobility in distinguishing animals from
the other two multicellular kingdoms. Some plants
and fungi prey on animals by using movements based on
changing turgor pressure in key cells, as compared with the
myofilament-based mobility seen in animals. Mobility requires
the development of vastly more elaborate senses and internal
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communication than are found in plants or fungi. It also

requires a different mode of growth: animals increase in size
mostly by expanding all parts of the body, whereas plants and
fungi mostly extend their terminal edges.

All phyla of the animal kingdom, including sponges,

possess collagen, a triple helix of protein that binds cells into
tissues. The walled cells of plants and fungi are held together by
other molecules, such as pectin. Because collagen is not found
among unicellular eukaryotes, even those forming colonies, it is
one of the indications that animals arose once from a common
unicellular ancestor.

History of Classification:

Except perhaps for the possession of collagen,

the criteria used above to distinguish animals from other forms
of life are not absolute. The first catalogs of
animal diversity were based on overall form and
similarity. Aristotle and other early biologists regarded all
organisms as part of a great chain, divisions of which were
more or less arbitrary. The 18th-century Swedish
botanist Carolus Linnaeus divided all animals into six
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classes: Mammalia, Aves, Amphibia (including

reptiles), Pisces, Insecta (Arthropoda), and Vermes (other
invertebrates). In the
early 1800s the French
zoologist Georges
Cuvier recognized that
vertebrates were
substantially different
from invertebrates, and
he divided most animals
on the basis of form and
function into four
branches: vertebrates,
arthropods (articulates),
mollusks, and radiates
(animals with radial
symmetry). Cuvier’s divisions formed the basis for all
subsequent classifications.

Just after Cuvier’s classification, the French

naturalist Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire outlined the
importance of homologous structures. Homology is
correspondence between features caused by continuity of
information. Thus, a bird’s wing is homologous to a bat’s wing
insofar as both are forelimbs, but they are not homologous as
wings. Homologous structures need not resemble each other;
for example, the three bones in the middle ear of humans are
homologous to three bones in the jaw apparatus in fishes
because the genetic and developmental information controlling
them has been continuous through evolutionary change.

The diverse appearance of animals is

mostly superficial; the bewildering variety of known forms,
some truly bizarre, can be assorted among a mere half-dozen
basic body plans. These plans are established during the
embryonic stages of development and limit the size and
complexity of the animals. Symmetry, number and relative
development of tissue layers, presence and nature of body
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cavities, and several aspects of early development define these

fundamental modes of organization.

Parazoa: A Cellular Level of Organization: Although

the two phyla in this subkingdom, Porifera (sponges) and
Placozoa, lack clearly
defined tissues and organs,
their cells specialize
and integrate their
activities. Their simplicity
has been adaptive, and
sponges have remained
important in benthic marine
habitats since their origin.
The sessile, filter-feeding
way of life shown by sponges has favoured a body plan of
radial symmetry, although some members have become
asymmetrical. The shape of the creeping, flattened placozoans
is irregular and changeable.
Radiata: A Tissue Level of Organization: The two
coelenterate phyla (Cnidaria and Ctenophora) advanced in
complexity beyond the
parazoans by
developing incipient tissues—
groups of cells that are
integrally coordinated in the
performance of a certain
function. For example,
coelenterates have well-defined
nerve nets, and their contractile
fibres, although only specialized
parts of more generalized cells,
are organized into
discrete muscle units. Because
discrete cells of different types do not carry out the internal
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functions of the animals, coelenterates are considered to be

organized at only a tissue level.

Bilateria: An Organ Level of Organization: All animals

except those in the four phyla mentioned above have bilaterally
symmetrical ancestors and contain three body layers
(triploblastic) with coalition of tissues into organs. The body
plans that are generally recognized are acoelomate,
pseudocoelomate, and coelomate.

Acoelomates have no internal fluid-filled body cavity

(coelom). Pseudocoelomates have a cavity between the inner
(endoderm) and the middle
(mesoderm) body layers.
Coelomates have a cavity
within the mesoderm, which
can show one of two types of
development: schizocoelous or
enterocoelic. Most
protostomes show
schizocoelous development, in
which the mesoderm
proliferates from a single cell
and divides to form a mass on each side of the body; the coelom
arises from a split within each mass. Deuterostomes show
enterocoelic pouching, in which the endoderm evaginates and
pinches off discrete pouches, the cavities of which become the
coelom and the wall the mesoderm.
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Acoelomates: Flatworms (phyla Platyhelminthes, Nemertea,

and Mesozoa) lack a coelom, although nemerteans have a fluid-
filled cavity at their anterior,
or head, end, which is used to
eject the proboscis rapidly.
The lack of a fluid-filled
cavity adjacent to the muscles
reduces the extent to which
the muscles can contract and
the force they exert (see
below Support and
movement). Flatworms are
thus constrained to be relatively flat and comparatively small;
parasitic worms, which do not locomote, can achieve immense
lengths (e.g., tapeworms), but they remain very thin. Most
flatworms have but one opening to the gut. Nemerteans, in
addition to a coelom-like housing for their proboscis, have
attained a one-way gut and a closed circulatory system. Both
increase their ability to move food and oxygen to all parts of the
body. Flatworms are considered to be the ancestors of all other
Bilateria.

Pseudocoelomates: The pseudocoelomates include the

nematodes, rotifers, gastrotrichs, and introverts. Some
members of some other phyla are also, strictly speaking,
pseudocoelomate. These four phyla of tiny body size (many
species no larger than the bigger protozoans) are placed
together in part because they lack mesoderm on the inner side
of the body cavity. Consequently, no tissue, muscular or
connective, supports the gut within the coelomic fluid. For tiny
organisms, this is advantageous for conservation of tissue:
there is no reason to evolve or to maintain a tissue that is not
functionally important. The inconspicuousness of most of these
phyla has led to a slow advancement in understanding their
phylogenetic position in the animal kingdom.
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Coelomates: The advantage of a true coelom is the ability of

the inner mesenteric (mostly connective tissue) layer to
suspend the central gut in the
middle of the animal.
Otherwise, in those animals
with a body cavity used in
locomotion, gravity would pull
the gut down and severely
curtail body size. Coelomates
have attained vastly larger
body sizes than has any other
group of animals. Within the coelomates, the coelom has been
of variable significance to the form and diversity of the various
phyla. For example, it is essential for the burrowing abilities of
annelids and related phyla. It has largely lost this significance
in the arthropods, however, which have transferred locomotion
to limbs supported by an exoskeleton rather than a coelomic
hydroskeleton. Suspension is the main function of the coelom
in vertebrates, which achieve the largest body sizes among
animals by virtue of an endoskeleton that does not need to be
shed during growth.

Social Levels of Organization: Large size is often

competitively advantageous but unobtainable by many animals
because of constraints of basic body plan. Intrinsically small
animals sometimes become large in the same way that
protozoans evolved into
metazoans: they multiply
the number of
individuals by asexual
reproduction (thus
maintaining the same
genotype) and remain
attached, with the option
that individuals can be
modified during their
development for a
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specialized function. This type of asexual sociality forms the

colonoids of sponges, coelenterates, bryozoans, hemichordates,
and tunicate chordates, all of which were primitively small,
sessile filter feeders. With slight modifications so that all
individuals in the colony could share equally in the gains, these
larger entities had the energy reserves necessary to outcompete
smaller organisms for space. This type of sociality has evolved
in ways that complicate the definition of individuality. For
instance, Portuguese men-of-war and their kin (some
hydrozoan coelenterates) look and act like single individuals,
yet their components develop as genetically identical units,
each homologous to a whole jellyfish or polyp. It is a question
whether such an animal should be considered one individual or
many.

To stay alive, grow, and

reproduce, an animal must find food, water, and oxygen, and it
must eliminate the waste products of metabolism.
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The organ systems typical of all but the simplest of animals

range from those highly specialized for one function to those
participating in many. The more basic functional systems are
treated below from a broadly comparative basis.

Support and Movement

A skeleton can support an animal, act as
an antagonist to muscle contraction, or, most commonly, do
both. Because muscles can only contract, they require some
other structure to stretch them to their noncontracted (relaxed)
state. Another set of muscles or the skeleton itself can act as an
antagonist to muscle contraction. Only elastic skeletons can act
without an antagonist; all antagonistic muscles act through a
skeleton, which can be either rigid, flexible, or hydrostatic.
Types of Skeletons and Their Distribution: Hydrostatic
skeletons are the most prevalent skeletal system used by
animals for movement and support. A minimal hydroskeleton
resembles a closed container. The walls are two layers of
muscles (antagonists) oriented at right angles to one another;
the inside contains
an incompressible
fluid or gel.
The contraction of
one set of muscles
exerts a pressure
on the fluid, which
is forced to move
at right angles to
the squeezing
antagonist.
Hydroskeletons
are also important
in nonlocomotory muscular systems, such as hearts or
intestines, which move blood or food, respectively. Contraction-
relaxation cycles push in one direction only when the system
has structures that prevent backflow.
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The Nervous System: Coherent movement results only

when the muscles receive a sensible pattern of activating signals
(for example, antagonists must not be activated to contract
simultaneously). Animals use
specialized cells
called neurons to coordinate
their muscular activity; nerves
are bundles of neurons or
parts thereof. Neurons
communicate between cells by
chemical messengers, but
within a single cell (often
extremely long) they can send
high-speed signals through a
wave of ionic polarization
(analogous to an electric current) along their membranes, a
property inherent in all cells but developed for speed in nerve
cells by special modifications.

The Senses: Appropriate behaviour relies on receiving

adequate information from the environment to alert an animal
to the presence of food, mates, or danger. Although sensory
nerves carry this information to the brain, they do not always
directly perceive the external world. Other modified cells
intervene to convert light waves into vision, pressure waves
in air or water into sound, chemicals into smell or taste, and
simple contact into touch. Some animals have other senses, as
for electric or magnetic fields.

Hormones: Hormones are the chemical integrators of a

multicellular existence, coordinating activities from daily
maintenance to reproduction and development. The
neurotransmitters released by axons are one class of chemical
communicators that act on an adjacent cell, usually
a muscle cell or another neuron. Hormones are a mostly
distinct class of chemical communicators secreted by nerves,
ordinary tissue, or special glands; they act on cells far removed
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from the site of their release. They can be proteins, single

polypeptides, amines, or steroids or other lipids. Hormones
travel to their place of action via the circulatory system and
then match their particular configuration with a specific
receptor molecule attached to a cell membrane or, more
usually, located within the cell.

Digestion: In contrast to plants, the essential nutrients that

animals require to sustain life and to reproduce come packaged
with their source of energy—the flesh or organic remains of
other organisms. The digestive and synthetic chemistry of
animals strongly reflects their diets; some of this design may be
altered with diet, and
some may not. No matter
how many leafy
vegetables humans
consume, for example,
the cellulose remains
undigested because
appropriate
microorganisms are not
present in the digestive tract and they cannot be obtained at
will. Consequently, essential nutrients are species-specific and
tend to include only molecules adequately available in the usual
diet.

Water/Vascular Systems: Animals live in an

aquatic environment even on land. Each cell is in contact with
the ocean or its aqueous equivalent, which carries food
and oxygen to the cells of the animal and carries its metabolic
wastes away. The water/vascular systems found in animals vary
from the nonexistent to the complex, with the complexity
correlated with body size and level of activity. Smaller animals
simply use the fluid-filled coelom for transport. Increasing size,
however, places too many cells beyond diffusion distance from
either the coelom or the outside. A muscular pump attached to
muscular vessels has arisen in larger animals to move the
interstitial fluid surrounding the cells. Most animals have open
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circulatory systems. Those few animals with closed circulatory

systems have a continuous series of vessels to circulate fluid to
the vicinity of all cells, whereas those with open systems have
vessels only near the heart. (Actually, no system is entirely
closed or open.) In open systems the interstitial fluid and the
circulatory fluid are the same, but in closed systems the two
fluids can differ considerably in composition.

Reproduction and Life Cycles: Primitive members of all

major taxa of animals reproduced sexually, and virtually all
animals still do at some time or
another. In contrast to other
activities, that of reproduction
and life history may be most
complex in the more simply
structured animals. If little
energy is put into complex
maintenance systems, more is
left for reproduction, the
central focus of an animal’s life.
Thus, although locomotion
constrains the reproductive
strategy of an animal, the possibilities with any locomotory
mode are diverse. For example, although sessile animals need
not expend energy attracting a mate, they do face the problem
of getting their gametes in contact with those of the opposite
sex. Sometimes both sexes release gametes in immense swarms
in which the probability of contact with the opposite sex is high.
Barnacles, which are sessile crustaceans, elongate one limb to
transfer sperm directly to another barnacle. (The
hermaphroditism of barnacles lets any individual’s neighbours
be potential mates.) Some barnacles and other animals have
small males that are parasitic on the females.
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Animals evolved in the seas but

moved into fresh water and onto land in the Ordovician Period,
after plants became available as a food source. A simple history
of animal ecology centres on the theme of eating some
organisms for food while
providing food for
others. The realities of
how animals
have done so are richly
varied and complex. The
ecology of animals and
other organisms is
reflected in their
phylogenetic radiations.
Ecologies are as
numerous as species, but, just as species can be grouped into
higher taxa, so too can a classification be made of the ways by
which animals find adequate food to reproduce and the ways
they remain alive while doing so.

Competition and Animal Diversity: The majority of

animal phyla are, and have always been, confined to the sea, a
comparatively benign environment. Marine animals need not
osmoregulate, thermoregulate, or provide against desiccation.
The energy procured can thus be used mostly for growth,
reproduction, and defense. Even reproduction can be simple:
shunting millions of eggs and sperm into the water and letting
them fend for themselves. Developing embryos do not need the
protection of a womb because the ocean provides a
suitable environment.
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Evolution of Ecological Roles: Animals arose from

protozoans and initially were simply larger, more complex, and
successful competitors for the same sources of food. The early
animals (parazoans, coelenterates, flatworms, and extinct
groups) exhibited the same basic strategies of obtaining food as
did the protozoans. Because of their larger size, however, they
had an
advantage over
protozoans: they
could prey on
them and oust
them from their
attachment sites
on the ocean
floor. The early
basic strategies
of animal life reflected two different means of competing for
food, that fixed by photosynthetic and chemosynthetic
organisms and that provided by the wastes and decaying tissues
of life forms. Almost all the free energy fixed is used by one
organism or another, so that what one animal wins is lost to the
rest. Animals do whatever they can to acquire all the energy
they can use, and in this basic sense each is competing with all
the others. Ultimately, predation is a mode of competition that
simply involves eating the potential competitor rather than
finding another way to share the same resource.

Humans and the Environment: Humans have had two

major effects on their environment, neither of which is original
but both of which are greater in consequence than those of any
other single species. These two impacts are expected outcomes
of natural selection, but their magnitude is of an unprecedented
order.
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All animals pollute their environs with their wastes, but only
when animals are too crowded does a buildup of wastes impair
their health. As mentioned above, the wastes of organisms
normally become the food
of others and thus usually
are eliminated almost as
rapidly as produced.
Leaf litter in the humid
tropics, for example, is
almost nonexistent
because of low
seasonality, but
elsewhere it can
accumulate to some
depth. Pollution becomes
a problem only when
waste cannot be
eliminated. For example,
the first great pollution episode in life’s history, which
formed oxygen, was a product of more efficient photosynthesis.
Oxygen is a poison to cells, but it is also among the best
acceptors of electrons in the breakdown of molecules for
energy. Organisms thus developed defenses against oxygen so
that they could use it advantageously in their metabolic
pathways—a pollutant turned essential to most life.

All the adaptations in

the living world have been produced by natural selection. This
selection acts continuously, on many levels and time scales.
Thus, an animal may become well adapted to an
ecological niche that then disappears, forcing the animal either
to evolve rapidly to fill another or, more likely, to become
extinct. Another animal, adapted to a more permanent niche,
survives. There is also long-term selection on the ability to
adapt, as well as on current adaptation,
for environments change, in both their physical and biotic
components. Mass extinctions of the past testify to major
changes, some perhaps catastrophic, the causes of which are
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still debated. These mass extinctions tended to eliminate more

active and specialized groups, partly setting broad-
scale evolution back and selecting for the inactive and resistant.

Appearance of Animals: Animals first appeared in

the Ediacaran Period (about 635 million to 541 million years
ago), soft-bodied forms that left traces of their bodies in
shallow-water sediments. The best-known are coelenterates of
various sorts,
including some that
were more irregular
than any today, and
there are several
groups with
unclear affinities. At
least some of the
latter groups
probably left no
descendants. Most
of the Ediacaran
animals were thin,
with each cell able
to diffuse nutrients
from the water, and
many may have
photosynthesized
with symbiotic algae. No sponges are known to have existed in
the Ediacaran, but they probably had already arisen
from choanoflagellate protists.

Rise of Vertebrates: Vertebrates are not known until the

Ordovician, when the first of a series of mostly heavily
armoured jawless fishes appeared, probably mud-grubbers and
filter feeders. Predaceous jawed fishes appeared in the Silurian,
perhaps even with a separate origin of bone, and divided into
three large groups. One, the placoderms, was more or less
dominant in the Devonian Period (419 million to 359 million
years ago) but rapidly became extinct at its end. Sharks and
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their relatives
have had a series
of adaptive
radiations, each
mostly replacing
the previous. The
same is true for
bony fishes, but
the teleosts have
been successful to
an unprecedented
degree. Lungfishes, which are mollusk crushers, have declined
in numbers since the Devonian.

Conclusion: Animal evolution began in the ocean over

600 million years ago with tiny creatures that probably do not
resemble any living organism today. Since then, animals have
evolved into a highly diverse kingdom. Although over one
million extant (currently living) species of animals have been
identified, scientists are continually discovering more species as
they explore ecosystems around the world. The number of
extant species is estimated to be between 3 and 30 million.

While we can easily identify dogs, birds, fish, spiders, and

worms as animals, other organisms, such as corals and sponges,
are not as easy to classify. Animals vary in complexity—from
sea sponges to crickets to chimpanzees—and scientists are faced
with the difficult task of classifying them within a unified
system. They must identify traits that are common to all
animals as well as traits that can be used to distinguish among
related groups of animals. The animal classification system
characterizes animals based on their anatomy, morphology,
evolutionary history, features of embryological development,
and genetic makeup. This classification scheme is constantly
developing as new information about species arises.
Understanding and classifying the great variety of living species
help us better understand how to conserve the diversity of life
on earth.
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REFERENCE

https://bio.libretexts.org

https://archive.org/

www.slideserve.com

www.britannica.com

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/

https://www.exploringnature.org/

https://carlykjohnson.weebly.com/

https://education.nationalgeographic.org/

https://paleontologyworld.com/

www.turbosquid.com
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