Characteristics of Animalia Kingdom
It's hard to imagine that a sponge attached to a rock and a lion are in the same kingdom, but they share certain characteristics that land them together. For instance, creatures in the Animalia Kingdom are:
- Multicellular, which means that they are made up of more than one cell. Some members of other kingdoms are just made up of one cell, like bacteria or amoeba.
- Heterotrophic, which means they have to get their own food. Plants are autotrophic because they make their own food through photosynthesis. Because they cannot make their own food, members of the Animalia Kingdom must ingest, or eat, other organisms.
- Eukaryotes: this is the type of cells animals have. Eukaryote cells are more complex than the simpler prokaryote cells found in bacteria.
- No cell wall: plants, fungi and prokaryote cells have a cell wall, which is a rigid outer layer that gives cells structure. Animal cells do not have this structure.
Facts and Examples
The Animalia Kingdom is vast with many unique and interesting organisms. Once an animal is grouped into a kingdom, it is further grouped into phyla (singular is phylum), and there are 35 phyla within the Animalia Kingdom. Here are some facts and examples of some members of this kingdom:
- Animals can be carnivores (meat eaters), herbivores (plant eaters), omnivores (plant and meat eaters) or scavengers.
- Invertebrates, or animals without a backbone, make up more than 98% of all critters in this kingdom.
- Animals can be endotherms (sometimes termed warm-blooded) like you or ectotherms (cold-blooded) like a frog.
- Animals can be tiny like the mite, which cannot be seen without a microscope, or enormous, like the 180-ton blue whale.
- Some animals can fly, like birds, bats and insects.
- Some animals are fast, like the peregrine falcon (200 mph when diving) and the cheetah (over 60 mph).
- Other animals are slow, like the giant tortoise (0.2 mph) and the sloth (1 mph).
- Some animals, like bears and ground squirrels, hibernate during the winter.
- Some animals, like the duck-billed platypus, have characteristics of several animals, like ducks, mammals and poisonous spiders.
- Some animals sleep all day, like the koala (sleeps 18 hours), the brown bat (almost 20 hours) and the tiger (almost 16 hours).
- Some animals, like the cuttlefish, which isn't a fish at all but a mollusk, similar to an octopus, can change colors.
- Some have changed very little over time, like the horseshoe crab, which is almost identical to its relatives who lived 230 million years ago.
Lesson Summary
The Animalia Kingdom has a myriad of diversely fascinating organisms. It might appear as though the flatworm and the peregrine falcon have nothing in common, but they share characteristics such as:
- Multicellular, or made up of many cells
- Heterotrophs, so they must obtain their own food
- Eukaryotic cells, which are more complex than the cells of bacteria
- No cell walls
Kingdoms are grouped together based on similar characteristics and, like the flatworm and falcon, members of the Animalia Kingdom share the characteristics listed above. So, the next time you see a spider, an earthworm or a deer, realize you have more in common with these critters than you think!
Learning Outcomes
Find out if you can achieve these objectives when you've studied this lesson on the Animalia Kingdom:
- List the six kingdoms
- Point out the characteristics of the Animalia Kingdom
- Provide some examples of the Animalia Kingdom's organisms
