Etymology

The word "animal" comes from the Latin word animalis, meaning "having breath", "
having soul, and, "living beings".[1] In everyday non-scientific usage the word
excludes humans
that is, "animal" is often used to refer only to non-human membe
rs of the kingdom Animalia; often, only closer relatives of humans such as mamma
ls, or mammals and other vertebrates, are meant.[2] The biological definition of
the word refers to all members of the kingdom Animalia, encompassing creatures
as diverse as sponges, jellyfish, insects, and humans.[3]
History of classification
Carl Linnaeus, known as the father of modern taxonomy
Aristotle divided the living world between animals and plants, and this was foll
owed by Carl Linnaeus, in the first hierarchical classification.[4] In Linnaeus'
s original scheme, the animals were one of three kingdoms, divided into the clas
ses of Vermes, Insecta, Pisces, Amphibia, Aves, and Mammalia. Since then the las
t four have all been subsumed into a single phylum, the Chordata, whereas the va
rious other forms have been separated out.
In 1874, Ernst Haeckel divided the animal kingdom into two subkingdoms: Metazoa
(multicellular animals) and Protozoa (single-celled animals).[5] The protozoa we
re later moved to the kingdom Protista, leaving only the metazoa. Thus Metazoa i
s now considered a synonym of Animalia.[6]
Characteristics
Animals have several characteristics that set them apart from other living thing
s. Animals are eukaryotic and multicellular,[7] which separates them from bacter
ia and most protists. They are heterotrophic,[8] generally digesting food in an
internal chamber, which separates them from plants and algae.[9] They are also d
istinguished from plants, algae, and fungi by lacking rigid cell walls.[10] All
animals are motile,[11] if only at certain life stages. In most animals, embryos
pass through a blastula stage,[12] which is a characteristic exclusive to anima
ls.
Structure
With a few exceptions, most notably the sponges (Phylum Porifera) and Placozoa,
animals have bodies differentiated into separate tissues. These include muscles,
which are able to contract and control locomotion, and nerve tissues, which sen
d and process signals. Typically, there is also an internal digestive chamber, w
ith one or two openings.[13] Animals with this sort of organization are called m
etazoans, or eumetazoans when the former is used for animals in general.[14]
All animals have eukaryotic cells, surrounded by a characteristic extracellular
matrix composed of collagen and elastic glycoproteins.[15] This may be calcified
to form structures like shells, bones, and spicules.[16] During development, it
forms a relatively flexible framework[17] upon which cells can move about and b
e reorganized, making complex structures possible. In contrast, other multicellu
lar organisms, like plants and fungi, have cells held in place by cell walls, an
d so develop by progressive growth.[13] Also, unique to animal cells are the fol
lowing intercellular junctions: tight junctions, gap junctions, and desmosomes.[
18]
Reproduction and development
See also: Sexual reproduction Animals and Asexual reproduction Examples in anima
ls
The use of love darts by the land snail Monachoides vicinus is a form of sexual
selection
Nearly all animals undergo some form of sexual reproduction.[19] They have a few
specialized reproductive cells, which undergo meiosis to produce smaller, motil
e spermatozoa or larger, non-motile ova.[20] These fuse to form zygotes, which d

evelop into new individuals.[21]

Many animals are also capable of asexual reproduction.[22] This may take place t
hrough parthenogenesis, where fertile eggs are produced without mating, budding,
or fragmentation.[23]
A zygote initially develops into a hollow sphere, called a blastula,[24] which u
ndergoes rearrangement and differentiation. In sponges, blastula larvae swim to
a new location and develop into a new sponge.[25] In most other groups, the blas
tula undergoes more complicated rearrangement.[26] It first invaginates to form
a gastrula with a digestive chamber, and two separate germ layers
an external ec
toderm and an internal endoderm.[27] In most cases, a mesoderm also develops bet
ween them.[28] These germ layers then differentiate to form tissues and organs.[
29]
Food and energy sourcing
Main article: Animal nutrition
A newt lung cell stained with fluorescent dyes undergoing the early anaphase sta
ge of mitosis
All animals are heterotrophs, meaning that they feed directly or indirectly on o
ther living things.[30] They are often further subdivided into groups such as ca
rnivores, herbivores, omnivores, and parasites.[31]
Predation is a biological interaction where a predator (a heterotroph that is hu
nting) feeds on its prey (the organism that is attacked).[32] Predators may or m
ay not kill their prey prior to feeding on them, but the act of predation almost
always results in the death of the prey.[33] The other main category of consump
tion is detritivory, the consumption of dead organic matter.[34] It can at times
be difficult to separate the two feeding behaviours, for example, where parasit
ic species prey on a host organism and then lay their eggs on it for their offsp
ring to feed on its decaying corpse. Selective pressures imposed on one another
has led to an evolutionary arms race between prey and predator, resulting in var
ious antipredator adaptations.[35]
Most animals indirectly use the energy of sunlight by eating plants or plant-eat
ing animals. Most plants use light to convert inorganic molecules in their envir
onment into carbohydrates, fats, proteins and other biomolecules, characteristic
ally containing reduced carbon in the form of carbon-hydrogen bonds. Starting wi
th carbon dioxide (CO2) and water (H2O), photosynthesis converts the energy of s
unlight into chemical energy in the form of simple sugars (e.g., glucose), with
the release of molecular oxygen. These sugars are then used as the building bloc
ks for plant growth, including the production of other biomolecules.[13] When an
animal eats plants (or eats other animals which have eaten plants), the reduced
carbon compounds in the food become a source of energy and building materials f
or the animal.[36] They are either used directly to help the animal grow, or bro
ken down, releasing stored solar energy, and giving the animal the energy requir
ed for motion.[37][38]
Animals living close to hydrothermal vents and cold seeps on the ocean floor are
not dependent on the energy of sunlight.[39] Instead chemosynthetic archaea and
bacteria form the base of the food chain.[40]
Origin and fossil record
Further information: Urmetazoan
Dunkleosteus was a 10-metre-long (33 ft) prehistoric fish.[41]
Animals are generally considered to have evolved from a flagellated eukaryote.[4
2] Their closest known living relatives are the choanoflagellates, collared flag
ellates that have a morphology similar to the choanocytes of certain sponges.[43
] Molecular studies place animals in a supergroup called the opisthokonts, which
also include the choanoflagellates, fungi and a few small parasitic protists.[4

4] The name comes from the posterior location of the flagellum in motile cells,
such as most animal spermatozoa, whereas other eukaryotes tend to have anterior
flagella.[45]
The first fossils that might represent animals appear in the Trezona Formation a
t Trezona Bore, West Central Flinders, South Australia.[46] These fossils are in
terpreted as being early sponges. They were found in 665-million-year-old rock.[
46]
The next oldest possible animal fossils are found towards the end of the Precamb
rian, around 610 million years ago, and are known as the Ediacaran or Vendian bi
ota.[47] These are difficult to relate to later fossils, however. Some may repre
sent precursors of modern phyla, but they may be separate groups, and it is poss
ible they are not really animals at all.[48]
Aside from them, most known animal phyla make a more or less simultaneous appear
ance during the Cambrian period, about 542 million years ago.[49] It is still di
sputed whether this event, called the Cambrian explosion, is due to a rapid dive
rgence between different groups or due to a change in conditions that made fossi
lization possible.
Some paleontologists suggest that animals appeared much earlier than the Cambria
n explosion, possibly as early as 1 billion years ago.[50] Trace fossils such as
tracks and burrows found in the Tonian period indicate the presence of triplobl
astic worms, like metazoans, roughly as large (about 5 mm wide) and complex as e
arthworms.[51] During the beginning of the Tonian period around 1 billion years
ago, there was a decrease in Stromatolite diversity, which may indicate the appe
arance of grazing animals, since stromatolite diversity increased when grazing a
nimals went extinct at the End Permian and End Ordovician extinction events, and
decreased shortly after the grazer populations recovered. However the discovery
that tracks very similar to these early trace fossils are produced today by the
giant single-celled protist Gromia sphaerica casts doubt on their interpretatio
n as evidence of early animal evolution.[52][53]
Groups of animals
Main article: Lists of animals
Traditional morphological and modern molecular phylogenetic analysis have both r
ecognized a major evolutionary transition from "non-bilaterian" animals, which a
re those lacking a bilaterally symmetric body plan (Porifera, Ctenophora, Cnidar
ia and Placozoa), to "bilaterian" animals (Bilateria) whose body plans display b
ilateral symmetry. The latter are further classified based on a major division b
etween Deuterostomes and Protostomes. The relationships among non-bilaterian ani
mals are disputed, but all bilaterian animals are thought to form a monophyletic
group. Current understanding of the relationships among the major groups of ani
mals is summarized by the following cladogram:

Choanoflagellata
Animal

Porifera

Placozoa

Cnidaria

Ctenophora

Bilateria

Deuterostomes
Protostomes

Ecdysozoa

Lophotrochozoa

Non-bilaterian animals: Porifera, Placozoa, Ctenophora, Cnidaria

Several animal phyla are recognized for their lack of bilateral symmetry, and ar
e thought to have diverged from other animals early in evolution. Among these, t
he sponges (Porifera) were long thought to have diverged first, representing the
oldest animal phylum.[54] They lack the complex organization found in most othe
r phyla.[55] Their cells are differentiated, but in most cases not organized int
o distinct tissues.[56] Sponges typically feed by drawing in water through pores
.[57] However, a series of phylogenomic studies from 2008-2015 have found suppor
t for Ctenophora, or comb jellies, as the basal lineage of animals.[58][59][60][
61] This result has been controversial, since it would imply that that sponges m
ay not be so primitive, but may instead be secondarily simplified.[58] Other res
earchers have argued that the placement of Ctenophora as the earliest-diverging
animal phylum is a statistical anomaly caused by the high rate of evolution in c
tenophore genomes.[62][63][64][65]
Among the other phyla, the Ctenophora and the Cnidaria, which includes sea anemo
nes, corals, and jellyfish, are radially symmetric and have digestive chambers w
ith a single opening, which serves as both the mouth and the anus.[66] Both have
distinct tissues, but they are not organized into organs.[67] There are only tw
o main germ layers, the ectoderm and endoderm, with only scattered cells between
them. As such, these animals are sometimes called diploblastic.[68] The tiny pl

acozoans are similar, but they do not have a permanent digestive chamber.
The Myxozoa, microscopic parasites that were originally considered Protozoa, are
now believed to have developed from within Cnidaria.[69]
A new group of animals, the Dendrogrammatidae, was discovered in Australian wate
r. Further DNA testing is required, but scientists suspects they could represent
a whole new phylum, possible descendants of the Ediacaran fauna.[70]
Orange elephant ear sponge, Agelas clathrodes, in foreground. Two corals in the
background: a sea fan, Iciligorgia schrammi, and a sea rod, Plexaurella nutans.
Bilaterian animals
The remaining animals form a monophyletic group called the Bilateria. For the mo
st part, they are bilaterally symmetric, and often have a specialized head with
feeding and sensory organs. The body is triploblastic, i.e. all three germ layer
s are well-developed, and tissues form distinct organs. The digestive chamber ha
s two openings, a mouth and an anus, and there is also an internal body cavity c
alled a coelom or pseudocoelom. There are exceptions to each of these characteri
stics, however
for instance adult echinoderms are radially symmetric, and certai
n parasitic worms have extremely simplified body structures.
Genetic studies have considerably changed our understanding of the relationships
within the Bilateria. Most appear to belong to two major lineages: the deuteros
tomes and the protostomes, the latter of which includes the Ecdysozoa, and Lopho
trochozoa. In addition, there are a few small groups of bilaterians with relativ
ely similar structure whose relationships with other animals are not well-establ
ished. These include the Acoelomorpha, Rhombozoa, and Orthonectida.
Deuterostomes and Protostomes
Superb fairy-wren, Malurus cyaneus
Deuterostomes differ from protostomes in several ways. Animals from both groups
possess a complete digestive tract. However, in protostomes, the first opening o
f the gut to appear in embryological development (the archenteron) develops into
the mouth, with the anus forming secondarily. In deuterostomes the anus forms f
irst, with the mouth developing secondarily.[71] In most protostomes, cells simp
ly fill in the interior of the gastrula to form the mesoderm, called schizocoelo
us development, but in deuterostomes, it forms through invagination of the endod
erm, called enterocoelic pouching.[72] Deuterostome embryos undergo radial cleav
age during cell division, while protostomes undergo spiral cleavage.[73]
All this suggests the deuterostomes and protostomes are separate, monophyletic l
ineages. The main phyla of deuterostomes are the Echinodermata and Chordata.[74]
The former are radially symmetric and exclusively marine, such as starfish, sea
urchins, and sea cucumbers.[75] The latter are dominated by the vertebrates, an
imals with backbones.[76] These include fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and m
ammals.[77]
In addition to these, the deuterostomes also include the Hemichordata, or acorn
worms, which are thought to be closely related to Echinodermata forming a group
known as Ambulacraria.[78][79] Although they are not especially prominent today,
the important fossil graptolites may belong to this group.[80]
Ecdysozoa
Yellow-winged darter, Sympetrum flaveolum
The Ecdysozoa are protostomes, named after the common trait of growth by moultin
g or ecdysis.[81] The largest animal phylum belongs here, the Arthropoda, includ
ing insects, spiders, crabs, and their kin. All these organisms have a body divi
ded into repeating segments, typically with paired appendages. Two smaller phyla
, the Onychophora and Tardigrada, are close relatives of the arthropods and shar
e these traits. The ecdysozoans also include the Nematoda or roundworms, perhaps

the second largest animal phylum. Roundworms are typically microscopic, and occ
ur in nearly every environment where there is water.[82] A number are important
parasites.[83] Smaller phyla related to them are the Nematomorpha or horsehair w
orms, and the Kinorhyncha, Priapulida, and Loricifera. These groups have a reduc
ed coelom, called a pseudocoelom.
Roman snail, Helix pomatia
Lophotrochozoa
The Lophotrochozoa, evolved within Protostomia, include two of the most successf
ul animal phyla, the Mollusca and Annelida.[84][85] The former, which is the sec
ond-largest animal phylum by number of described species, includes animals such
as snails, clams, and squids, and the latter comprises the segmented worms, such
as earthworms and leeches. These two groups have long been considered close rel
atives because of the common presence of trochophore larvae, but the annelids we
re considered closer to the arthropods because they are both segmented.[86] Now,
this is generally considered convergent evolution, owing to many morphological
and genetic differences between the two phyla.[87] The Lophotrochozoa also inclu
de the Nemertea or ribbon worms, the Sipuncula, and several phyla that have a ri
ng of ciliated tentacles around the mouth, called a lophophore.[88] These were t
raditionally grouped together as the lophophorates.[89] but it now appears that
the lophophorate group may be paraphyletic,[90] with some closer to the nemertea
ns and some to the molluscs and annelids.[91][92] They include the Brachiopoda o
r lamp shells, which are prominent in the fossil record, the Entoprocta, the Pho
ronida, and possibly the Bryozoa or moss animals.[93]
The Platyzoa include the phylum Platyhelminthes, the flatworms.[94] These were o
riginally considered some of the most primitive Bilateria, but it now appears th
ey developed from more complex ancestors.[95] A number of parasites are included
in this group, such as the flukes and tapeworms.[94] Flatworms are acoelomates,
lacking a body cavity, as are their closest relatives, the microscopic Gastrotr
icha.[96] The other platyzoan phyla are mostly microscopic and pseudocoelomate.
The most prominent are the Rotifera or rotifers, which are common in aqueous env
ironments. They also include the Acanthocephala or spiny-headed worms, the Gnath
ostomulida, Micrognathozoa, and possibly the Cycliophora.[97] These groups share
the presence of complex jaws, from which they are called the Gnathifera.
The Chaetognatha or arrow worms have been traditionally classified as deuterosto
mes, though recent molecular studies have identified this group as a basal proto
stome lineage.