Kingdom Animalia
Answer the following questions in the warm-up section of your science notebook.
Follow the standard warm-up format: date, question, answer (in complete sentences).
Total possible extra credit is 5 points
As a kingdom, animals have proven very successful and resiliant. This has led to an
amazing array of different animals with strange adaptations. These adaptations have allowed animals to survive in
almost every remote and inhospitable environment on our planet.
example 1
| example 2
| example 3
| example 4
While many of these adaptations are physical, often times the most important adaptations an animal makes
are behavioral. The members of Kingdom Animalia share many defining physical characteristics, but
perhaps their most powerful characteristic is their ability to react and interact to their immediate
environment. This ability to monitor and modify behavior has allowed animals to become one of the most
diverse and dynamic kingdom of organisms on our planet.
Lets review what makes an animal.
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Defining Characteristics of Animals |
1. Multicellular
Animals are complex organisms with many levels of cellular organization. Specialized cells are organized
into tissues, tissues organized into organs, organs into organ systems, and organ systems into whole organisms. |
2. Sexual Reproduction
The idea of sexual reproduction may not seem all that revolutionary to you, but the development of
meiotic cell division was one of the most important developments in the history of life on our planet.
Sexual reproduction allows for genetic information to be shared and recombined, which allows animals to
adapt and diversify more efficiently. Many animal species also reproduce assexually (when in doubt, clone
it out), but sexual reproduction is the prominent means by which animals make more animals. |
3. Heterotrophic
Animals are unable to produce their own food like plants, so they must ingest food from an outside source.
The types of food that animals ingest varies greatly, as do the ways in which they obtain their food.
Carnivores, herbivores, omnivores, predators, scavengers, and prey - they are all animals that must find
ways to obtain food. |
4. Mobility
The ability to move is what has made animals the most exciting organisms to study. Fungi, plants,
and bacteria all seem pretty boring compared to most animals. Even animals that are stationary for
large portions of their lives (like barnacles or sea anenomes) spend at least part of their lives in a
mobile form. Mobility was what allowed animals to become the most efficient heterotrophs the world
had ever seen. |
5. Behavior
Even the simplest animals can react to changes in their environment. Many animals are even able to
change their environment through behavior, either by altering their location, or by constructing shelter
to protect themselves from the environment. Can you think of any animals that do this? |
The Lowly Pillbug
Rolly-poly, sow bug, doodle bug, pillbug - there must be a million names for
these little critters. They seem to be everywhere. You can hardly pick up a rock anywhere that doesn't
have one of these bugs living underneath it. The scientific name of the pillbug is Armadillidium vulgare,
which means something like common miniature armadillo (I think). Please write the answers to questions #1 - 3
in the warm up section of your lab notebook.
Question #1 - Considering how many names that there
are for Armadillidium vulgare in English, and how many different other languages there are with their own
words for these bugs, why do you think scientists have developed scientific names for organisms?
Question #2 - Though pillbugs and insects are both
in the Phylum Arthropoda, they are in different subphyla. Use the link below to find out what subphylum
pillbugs are in. Just type "pillbug" into the search box and click on the link that comes up. You should write
the subphylum in your lab book.
Integrated Taxonomic Information System
Question #3 - Now use the link below to find out at least
three other animals that are in the same subphylum as the pillbug. Write these in your lab book also.
Phylum Arthropoda
Animal Adaptations
Animal adaptations are often remarkable. These adaptations can be both physical and behavioral.
Often times very different animals can develop similar adaptations, especially when these adaptations give
the animals a significant advantage in terms of survival. Go to the link below and watch the short video.*
Then answer question #4 in your lab book.
Wild Gliders of Borneo
Question #4 - Are the gliding adaptations of these
animals physical or behavioral? What sort of pressures from the environment may be responsible for these
unusual, cross-species adaptations?
*Streaming video works best with a high speed internet connection.
If you are having problems watching the movie,
>>>click here.
Please write the answers to
questions 1-4 in the warm up section of your lab book.
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