Animals: What You Should Know

Animals are a specific type of living being. When they eat, animals absorb substances from other living beings: a cow, for example, eats grass. During digestion, it absorbs food and prepares it for consumption. This allows the energy in the food to be converted into power or heat. Plants, on the other hand, get their energy from the light of the sun. They only get the building blocks from the ground through their roots.

In addition, animals need oxygen to breathe. Fish get their oxygen from the water and other animals from the air. Normally, animals can move under their own power and discover their world with their eyes, ears, and other sensory organs. Some animals consist of only one cell, others have many cells.

From a scientific point of view, man is also an animal. In general, however, when one speaks of “animals” one usually means “animals with the exception of humans”.

How can you classify animals?

There are several simple ways to classify the animals, for example, according to their habitat: forest animals, sea animals, and so on. A division into wild animals and domestic animals is also possible and useful. However, these classifications are usually not clear. The deer, for example, is both a forest animal and a wild animal. Snails can live in the sea, in a lake, or on land.

The first scientific classification comes from Carl von Linné. He lived about 300 years ago. He gave the plants, animal species, and minerals Latin names, by which the creatures could be clearly identified. The names already gave an indication of the relationship. His system has been refined over time.

Science today speaks of the animal kingdom, the plant kingdom, the fungal kingdom, and many more. The kingdom of animals is also called the animal kingdom. It can be divided into the Vertebrate phylum, the Mollusk phylum and the Arthropod phylum, and a few more. We know the vertebrates best. We divide them into the classes of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and fish.