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animal/amimalia

Very little of what's on that page [i.e., Animalia] is taxonomy - it's mostly an overview of the group, a discussion of what distinguishes them, and some notes about their origin. I know it's a little technical but that's mainly because I wrote it in excitement over finding out what unites sponges and metazoa; I'm not sure what the purpose of dividing pages like this would be.

"Animal" is quite obviously a natural topic for biology! You might want to say something on the page called "animal," in less technical terms, and otherwise point to the Animalia page. Similarly, Wikipedia is not going to go through life never having a plant page (Yes, it now has one). There is no good reason to use the Latin words exclusively, is there? If only to avoid redundancy, well, of course you can avoid redundancy by monitoring what is put on the animal page and what is on the animalia page. Maybe, you'll simply want the animal page point to animalia. --LMS

I think the last is probably the best. Or maybe animalia should point to animal, I'm having a tought time figuring that out. See talk:Linnaean taxonomy...also note that a flat list of animals like this is going to die hard if more people ever take an interest in them.

suggestion from LMS

I suggest that the biologists develop biology articles in whatever format they find most simpatico, and after that we can construct a page in ordinary English that points to the Latin pages. (You might want to state your intentions on Animal in order to make this unconfusing to the casual reader.) --LMS

animal in the sense of mammel?

I don't think animal is ever meant in the sense of mammal. Certainly when people give examples of animals, they choose them from that order, but that is no different than aleph not coming to mind when you give an example of a letter. Certainly whenever non-mammals are at all considered the word animal is assumed to include them - for instance, fish and animals is a construction which is just plain wrong.

This same sort of trouble seems to me to come up on Fish, too - the word is often used for things like jellyfish and shellfish, but if it ever came down to the question "are these fish?" the answer would be a definite no.

Whilst I'd disagree with the exact wording of the entry, I'd also disagree with your statement. Most people would consider it, in the common sense of the word, to include fish, birds and reptiles, they'd probably not include insects quite so readily. Dave McKee

animal/animalia again

Why in the world is there separate articles for animal and animalia? Following wikipedia naming conventions there should be just one article named animal with the Latin term redirecting there. Any difference in useage would be an interesting thing to discuss in the article itself. --maveric149

Naming conventions aren't set in stone, mav. ;-) From the above discussion, animal is intended for general information, while animalia is reserved for more technical information. --Stephen Gilbert

Well there isn't much here anyway and both of the articles are about the same thing, so I am going to perform a merge of content. No need to have duplication of effort. This type of needless duplication has already been discussed elsewhere. --maveric149

I don't see any duplication of effort, and the articles aren't about the same thing. The animalia page is dense, full of technical information that the average person isn't looking for when they look up animal. Animalia is about scientific classification; animal is for general information. --Stephen Gilbert

As I have stated in other places, I'm not a fan of splitting content along lines of common vs. scientific usage -- even though I am a biologist. A good encyclopedia article on animals would not be so technical as to not be accessible to non-scientists. Using the Latin name only encourages technically-inclined people to write for, what much of the public at large (esp. in the US) views as the "scientific priesthood" by using technical jargon (no wonder much of the general public feels this way -- also no wonder why the vast majority of them are scientifically illiterate). The difference in usage alone would make for an interesting paragraph (see Jellyfish discussion about the the Portuguese man-of-war). However, in most contexts the two terms are near perfect synonyms. If animalia is too technical, then it needs to be copyedited for that (maybe moving more technical discussions to sub-articles). --maveric149

Well, I'm not convinced about the merger, but you seem to feel more strongly about than I, and you're a biologist, so I'm not going to undo it or anything. However, I do encourage you to keep working on the article and spin the more detailed stuff into sub-headings and/or sub-articles. --Stephen Gilbert

I will do my best as time permits. --maveric149

non mammel examples

I'd like to toss a few non-mammals onto the list of animals-by-common-names at the end of the article. Nothing too obscure: maybe bee, shark, parrot or the like. Vicki Rosenzweig

By all means, please do! --maveric149
Done

Graeme Base's Animalia

Moved from article: "There is also an article titled Graeme Base's Animalia." (I've moved this because, if there is, the link is broken) Vicki Rosenzweig, Monday, July 15, 2002

list content dispute

A list of animals is nice, but this one, saying the animals are "well-known" adds nothing to the article. I had never even heard of an angula, and I wouldn't rank buffalo, elk, lynx and salamander in there as well.

What would be useful would be some examples of well-known animals from each of the subkingdoms or ven the phyla. We could also have a List of animals article, if that's necessary. Jeronimo

taxobox

The chart on the right side of the page needs content and HTML-coding work. --Dante Alighieri

nervous system?

I don't know enough about phylogeny and what makes animals animals to really argue hard for the addition I suggested and tweaked in response to criticism:

"An early adaptation and distinguishing feature of animals, with the exception of sponges and Placozoa, is the nervous system."

It just seems to me a small token to the common sense of "animal," which would be very satisfying to the reader who comes to this article with only that common sense of it, and which to naive me has merit even just as an assertion about phylogeny/evolution, which not to mention is accurate. The remark about muscle and nerve below as incidental to cell differentiation to me calls little attention to these things and to me doesn't make my sentence redundant (although I didn't notice it at first). 168... 17:58 Feb 16, 2003 (UTC)]

Ok. I simply didn't think it belonged at the top, because treating metazoan characteristics as if they were the normal for all animals, while standard, really obscures why things like sponges belong in the group. I've tried blocking off the metazoa, and making the nervous system a little more prominent there, as a compromise.

locomotion?

What animals are incapable of locomotion? Not sponges, at least, according to my recent Web surfing. 168... 04:05, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)

If locomotion has anything to do with moving from one location to another, than any of the various animals that live attached to some substratum, sponges included. If locomotion simply means rearranging some cells or wiggling some extremity, possibly none, but by those standards most plants are capable of locomotion as well.

O.K. That sounds like an excellent point. Maybe those scientists touting their discovery of sponge movements were just grasping for some undeserved limelight by calling it locomotion. I haven't read the studies and didn't realize (assuming it's true) that sponges spend their entire adult lives anchored to one spot. Anyway, I guess I know anenomes and corals do, and if I'd just remembered I wouldn't have neglected to qualify "locomotion" as a less than universal characteristic of animals. I'm glad you agree that its sub-universality doesn't make it unimportant to the concept of animals. 168... 05:18, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)

caps in list

At the list of animals, some were capped, and others weren't (most weren't). So I uncapped all of them. ("Human" was capped...seemed possibly anthropomorphic...j/k, sort of...) Unless capping these terms is some convention in biology, of course. Revolver 08:21, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

An automated Wikipedia link suggester has some possible wiki link suggestions for the Animal article:

  • Can link pre-existence: ... carbohydrate and proteid; it is dependent, in fact, on the pre-existence of these organic substances, themselves the products of liv...
  • Can link fade out: ...in which the primary differences between animals and plants fade out....
  • Can link multicellular organisms: ...d usually a [[mesoderm]] between them. In contrast, other multicellular organisms such as [[plant]]s and [[fungus|fungi]] usually have cells ... (link to section)
  • Can link adaptive radiation: ...ambrian]] period, about 570 million years ago; this massive adaptive radiation is called the [[Cambrian Explosion]].... (link to section)
  • Can link new kingdom: ...ally unrelated and often as similar to plants as animals, a new kingdom, the [[Protist]]a, was devised to hold them.... (link to section)
  • Can link digestive tract: ...called the [[Protostomia]]. These phyla all have a complete digestive tract (including a [[mouth]] and an [[anus]]), with the mouth dev... (link to section)
  • Can link extinct animal: ...Chordata]] (vertebrates and their kin) There are also some extinct animal phyla that, without much knowledge of their embryology or i... (link to section)
  • Can link three kingdoms: ...nnaeus|Linnaeus]]' original scheme, the animals were one of three kingdoms, divided into the classes of [[Vermes]], [[Insect]]a, [[Fis... (link to section)

Additionally, there are some other articles which may be able to linked to this one (also known as "backlinks"):

  • In Albinism, can backlink animal kingdom: ...rry these genes. Albinism tends to be more hazardous in the animal kingdom, where vision and pigmentation are usually strongly linked ...
  • In Claudius Aelianus, can backlink animal kingdom: ... as :"an appealing collection of facts and fables about the animal kingdom that invites the reader to ponder contrasts between human a...
  • In Evolutionism, can backlink animal kingdom: ...f the cotemporaneous existence of the four divisions of the animal kingdom, vertebrata, mollusca, articulata, and radiala--a fact whic...
  • In Isle of Man, can backlink five kingdoms: ...of which it is possible, according to an old saying, to see five kingdoms: the kingdom of Man, that of England, that of Scotland, tha...
  • In Prostitution, can backlink animal kingdom: ... to be the first time prostitution has been recorded in the animal kingdom. Trading sex for food etc. ''within'' a relationship betwee...
  • In Thomas Henry Huxley, can backlink animal kingdom: ... problem of [[Appendicularian]] organism whose place in the animal kingdom [[Johannes Peter Müller]] had found himself wholly unable t...
  • In Thyroid, can backlink animal kingdom: ...the regulation of [[metabolism]] and growth, throughout the animal kingdom. Among [[amphibian]]s, for example, administering a thyroid...
  • In Teleological argument, can backlink animal kingdom: ...ment of a fully functioning eye has modern analogues in the animal kingdom, and each step need only develop through nothing more than ...
  • In Hyderabad, India, can backlink five kingdoms: ...ynasty were founders of the Kingdom of Golconda, one of the five kingdoms that emerged after the break up of the [[Bahmani Sultanate]...
  • In Where Mathematics Comes From, can backlink animal kingdom: ...r [[apes]], all [[primates]], and broader membership in the animal kingdom. Or, for that matter, robots and other entities we might ac...
  • In Sick Puppy, can backlink animal kingdom: ...akfast]]. There are only few local residents. As far as the animal kingdom is concerned, the island is inhabited by innumerable tiny [...
  • In Dovber of Mezeritch, can backlink animal kingdom: ...attained. Thus the vegetable kingdom serves as food for the animal kingdom, in order that the lower manifestation of divinity, existin...
  • In Tree of Knowledge, can backlink animal kingdom: ...m of [[consciousness]] from the simple [[awareness]] of the animal kingdom. The human being begins to make choices that even if they i...
  • In Kavango, can backlink five kingdoms: ... named after the people. Politically they are divided into five kingdoms, each headed by a hompa or fumu. Traditional law is still i...
  • In Physiognomy, can backlink animal kingdom: ...The second section focuses on animal behavior, dividing the animal kingdom into male and female types. From these are deduced correspo...
  • In Ecodefense, can backlink ANIMAL: ...le Modifications Water and Big Yellow Machines CHAPTER 6 ANIMAL DEFENSE...
  • In Vertebrate paleontology, can backlink Kingdom Animalia: ... before us. ==Paleontological Vertebrate Classification== Kingdom Animalia...
  • In Der ewige Jude, can backlink animal kingdom: ...e narration explains how just as rats are the vermin of the animal kingdom, Jews are the vermin of the human race and similarly spread...
  • In Osmoregulation, can backlink animal kingdom: ...rity which always stays constant and are more common in the animal kingdom. Osmoregulators actively control salt concentrations despit...
  • In Thermoregulation, can backlink animal kingdom: ...ous animals. He found that animals of the same class of the animal kingdom showed very similar temperature values, those from the Amph...
  • In Thin-film optics, can backlink animal kingdom: ...icks as mentioned above, as well as in many branches of the animal kingdom. For example, the reflective and [[iridescence|iridescent]...
  • In Amarula, can backlink animal kingdom: ... The Marula tree holds a position of importance both in the animal kingdom and in human legend and ritual. The trees themselves cannot...
  • In Courtship, can backlink animal kingdom: ... kingdom == Courtship activities are widely observed in the animal kingdom, where they play their part in the process of [[sexual sel...
  • In Early Independent Uganda, can backlink five kingdoms: ... contitution was suspended. Soon after the monarchs of the five kingdoms were stripped of their positions and forced into exile....
  • In Animal communication, can backlink animal kingdom: .... They include some of the most striking structures in the animal kingdom, such as the [[peacock]]'s tail. Birdsong appears to have n...
  • In Floristic province, can backlink five kingdoms: ...each subdivided into floristic provinces. Each of the other five kingdoms are subdivided directly into provinces. There is a total of...
  • In Regular polytope, can backlink animal kingdom: ...ia]]]] The most famous hexagons in nature are found in the animal kingdom. The wax [[honeycomb]] made by [[bee]]s is an array of [[he...
  • In Longnose gar, can backlink Kingdom Animalia: ...eth in nylon threads, or by bowfishing. Classification: Kingdom Animalia ...
  • In Phelsuma references, can backlink animal kingdom: ...lass reptilia I-110. In : Griffith E. Pidgeon. E. (eds) The animal kingdom. Arranged in conformitty with its organisation by the baron...
  • In Lauren Weinstein (comic strip artist), can backlink animal kingdom: ...f mystery, sexual intrigue and violent death hangs over the animal kingdom, outer space and suburban America alike. In terms of style,...
  • In Isidore the Farmer, can backlink animal kingdom: ...for his goodness which he extended to both the poor and the animal kingdom. He is known to have performed many miracles in his lifetim...
  • In Lauren Weinstein (comic book artist), can backlink animal kingdom: ...f mystery, sexual intrigue and violent death hangs over the animal kingdom, outer space and suburban America alike. In terms of style,...
  • In Oxazepam, can backlink ANIMAL: ...ctive metabolite in man, a glucuronide excreted in urine. ANIMAL PHARMACOLOGY AND TOXICOLOGY ...
  • In Melanosome, can backlink animal kingdom: ...lanin]], the commonest light-absorbing pigment found in the animal kingdom. Cells which produce melanosomes are called [[melanocyte|me...
  • In Sound localization, can backlink animal kingdom: ... [[barn owl]]s are paragons of monaural localization in the animal kingdom, and have thus become [[model organism]]s....
  • In Russian joke, can backlink animal kingdom: ...borrow some money, Dad?" === Animals === Jokes set in the animal kingdom also feature stereotypes, such as the violent wolf, the sne...
  • In Higher evolution, can backlink animal kingdom: ...us with, the 'lower' or biological [[evolution]] within the animal kingdom up to the human level. Whereas the lower evolution is a bio...
  • In Mutant X (television), can backlink animal kingdom: ... [[DNA]], giving her the strength, speed and cunning of the animal kingdom. She is a Feline Feral who has the most common feral weakne...
  • In Jimmy Hibbert, can backlink ANIMAL: ... MUNGIE - Cosgrove Hall Prods (pilot eps) ANIMAL SHELF - Cosgrove Hall Films – 4 series 13 eps ea...
  • In Dominion Theology, can backlink animal kingdom: ...is verse as meaning that God gave mankind dominion over the animal kingdom. Dominion theologians believe that that this verse commands...

Notes: The article text has not been changed in any way; Some of these suggestions may be wrong, some may be right.
Feedback: I like it, I hate it, Please don't link to — LinkBot 11:35, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Animals and other kingdoms

I've removed the following section:

Until the discovery of protoplasm, and the series of investigations by which it was established that the cell was a fundamental structure essentially alike in both animals and plants (see cytology), there was a vague belief that plants, if they could really be regarded as animated creatures, exhibited at the most a lower grade of life. We know now that in so far as life and living matter can be investigated by science, animals and plants cannot be described as being alive in different degrees. Animals and plants are extremely closely related organisms, alike in their fundamental characters, and each grading into organisms which possess some of the characters of both classes or kingdoms (see Protista). The actual boundaries between animals and plants are artificial; they are rather due to the ingenious analysis of the systematist than actually resident in objective nature.

The most obvious distinction is that the animal cell-wall is either absent or composed of a nitrogenous material, whereas the plant cell-wall is composed of a carbohydrate material—cellulose. The animal and the plant alike require food to repair waste, to build up new tissue and to provide material which, by chemical change, may liberate the energy which appears in the processes of life. The food is alike in both cases; it consists of water, certain inorganic salts, carbohydrate material and protein material. Both animals and plants take their water and inorganic salts directly as such. The animal cell can absorb its carbohydrate and protein food only in the form of carbohydrate and protein; it is dependent, in fact, on the pre-existence of these organic substances, themselves the products of living matter, and in this respect the animal is essentially a parasite on existing animal and plant life. The plant, on the other hand, if it be a green plant, containing chlorophyll, is capable, in the presence of light, of building up both carbohydrate material and protein material from inorganic salts; if it be a fungus, devoid of chlorophyll, whilst it is dependent on pre-existing carbohydrate material and is capable of absorbing, like an animal, protein material as such, it is able to build up its protein food from material chemically simpler than protein. On these basic differences are founded most of the characters which make the higher forms of animal and plant life so different.

The animal body, if it be composed of many cells, follows a different architectural plan; the compact nature of its food, and the yielding nature of its cell-walls, result in a form of structure consisting essentially of tubular or spherical masses of cells arranged concentrically round the food-cavity. The relatively rigid nature of the plant cell-wall, and the attenuated inorganic food-supply of plants, make possible and necessary a form of growth in which the greatest surface is exposed to the exterior, and thus the plant body is composed of flattened laminae and elongated branching growths. The distinctions between animals and plants are in fact obviously secondary and adaptive, and point clearly towards the conception of a common origin for the two forms of life, a conception which is made still more probable by the existence of many low forms in which the primary differences between animals and plants fade out.

An animal may be defined as a living organism, the protoplasm of which does not secrete a cellulose cell-wall, and which requires for its existence protein material obtained from the living or dead bodies of existing plants or animals. The common use of the word animal as the equivalent of mammal, as opposed to bird or reptile or fish, is erroneous.

The classification of the animal kingdom is dealt with in the article zoology.

This material seems to me strongly predicated on the old two-kingdom system, even though it mentions Protista. Biologists do think there is a genuine separation between the animals and plants, based on evolutionary relationships. In that case, most of the material above is irrelevant. It doesn't matter that plants make cellulose cell walls, for instance, because that isn't part of what distinguishes animals. Lots of protozoa don't have cell walls, but are no longer considered animals. Fungi don't have cellulose cell walls, and have never been considered animals. The final definition easily includes both, so I am treating this discussion as somewhere between obsolete and mistaken. Josh


Classification of Animalia (a possible one)

Should there not be anything about this?

Hox genes are specific to animals Fad (ix) 19:11, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Any answers? Should this not be included? Hox gene are a group of homeobox gene that as far as I am aware of is found among every animals and only animals. Every animals have at least one Hox genes. Fad (ix) 21:20, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Hox gene does it have an article ?Rich Farmbrough 18:20 24 March 2006 (UTC).

No, Hox gene are a specific subgroup of Homeobox, not only animals have Homeobox, but only animals have Hox genes, the homeotic genes in plant are not Hox genes and should not be confounded. Just for comparaison humans and mice have 4 Hox clusters on 4 chromosomes(different). Even their paterns are similar in nearly all bilateral animals. Hox genes are believed to be necessary for the segmentation of the animal organism. In fact, on genetic bases, we can resume an entire article about animals by simply saying that animals have Hox genes. While I think this information is necessary in this article, I don't know where to put it, should there be a new category for that? Fad (ix) 21:41, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

List of examples

What is the big list of examples for? Wouldn't it be better as a separate article? Gdr 11:48, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

That discussion is already in progress above at Examples. timrem 23:01, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
No it isn't it went off track, and they started talking about whether humans are animals. Anyway, I don't think this list should be here. You don't see in other articles, like plant or frog. We already include the phyla, which inlcudes common names, so the list should not be there. There is no encyclopaedic value, do you think that someone is going to actually read through those names for any purpose? --liquidGhoul 23:13, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Cleaning Up

This article needs a major clean up. There are two things I am proposing. Firstly, is the shortening of the taxobox. I think we need to follow the frog article, and just include the subregnum in the taxobox, and leave the phylum for a list article (like List of Anuran families). Secondly, the photos need some organisation. This is such a high level article, I think there should only really be featured pictures included if we can. I would like to have as much diversity in the photos as possible, but not have a gallery. I will go through WP:FP, and pick out what I think is most appropriate. --liquidGhoul 13:48, 17 May 2006 (UTC)


'roughly equivalent to what modern biology would classify as nonhuman mammal. For example, in the United States, state wildlife laws commonly use phrases such as "animals, birds and fish."'

This example doesn't fit, because the United States wildlife laws count reptiles as animals. Reptiles are not non-human mammals.

In the section "Origin and fossil record", the word Eukaryote link to the wikipedia page. --Pulu 7/16/07

It links to the article on Eukaryote, as it should. Do you see something else? -- Donald Albury 11:03, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Animals, sunlight, and other forms of obtaining energy

I recently made an edit to this article (accidentally without first signing in) about creatures who live at hydrothermal vents who are NOT dependent on sunlight for energy. This section needs to be expanded and explained more - I was quite surprised to see that this article still had the old-fashioned view that sunlight is absolutely necessary for all processes. Is anyone willing to help? Esn 16:20, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

I took a stab clarifying animal nutrition. Any thoughts? Cephal-odd 06:59, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
changed the "All animals... sunlite" to "most" to deal with the vent issue. A sillier way of putting it would be "most animals are powered by nuclear fusion; the exception being animals living close to deep sea vents which are powered by nuclear fission processes". HughesJohn (talk) 13:27, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Orthonectida

Orthonectida is listed twice in the taxobox. Where does it belong? Jimp 04:29, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Propably under Agnotazoa but Bilatera claims to include Mesozoa=Rhombozoa+Orthonectida so that should probably also be changed. Eluchil404 04:38, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Link to LiveScience Animal page added to external links - page has number of new Nature-series video, user-submitted animal pictures, and a number of new image galleries and pictures. I work for LiveScience and we created this all-in-one page as any easy reference page for our users. Hope you enjoy it. Starexplorer 12:32, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Link to the AnimalSearch search engine added to external links - This is a site developed by me as a hobby. It gives search results only from web pages that are animal related and contains many smaller web pages that users might have a hard time to find otherwise. The most information in it focuses on canadian and australian wildlife but you can find information about almost every kind of animal in there. I try to find and index at least one new web page per day so it is steadily growing. I hope you will find it useful. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.191.235.204 (talk) 12:02, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Your web page is soliciting advertisements. It is also inappropriate for you to be adding your own web page. Please read Wikipedia:External links. -- Donald Albury 19:00, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

animal populations

This is probably a stupid request to most of you, but can wiki have an article or topic about animal population growth or decline rates due to human involvement? I don't know where to put this.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 208.186.255.18 (talk • contribs) .

See Ecological economics. The External links at the end of that article may help you in your research of the subject. -- Donald Albury 11:35, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Animal usage

What is with the last two paragraphs in the lead? That is so incredibly innacurate, and badly written. It needs to be cited to death if you are going to make such silly assumptions.

"The use of the word animal in law typically reflects the common pre-scientific use of the word, roughly equivalent to what modern biology would classify as nonhuman mammal. For example, wildlife laws commonly use phrases such as "animals, birds and fish."

This sounds like it was written by someone who has no knowledge of animals whatsoever. Mammals, birds and fish are not the only species which are commonly reffered to in law, especially since the awareness of decline in amphibian populations. Also, at least in Australian law, this is completely untrue, and has been since the 1950s. If it is something which occurs in America, that should be stated, cited, and moved to later in the article. Law can't risk being ambiguous, and if it they just want to talk about mammals, they wouldn't dare say animals. --liquidGhoul 08:16, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

My apologies for the wording of that section, which I have now modified. While I have studied biology and am familiar with wildlife law in the U.S., I am as ignorant of Australian law as most U.S. legislators apparently are of biology. (It is a real problem in the U.S., and I could list references, but I'm not sure how relevant it would be to the rest of the article.) --Sentience 02:19, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

The following comment moved from top of page to here per common practice on talk pages.

Possible exclusion of some 'Insects' from the Animal Kingdom

I noticed today in the second paragraph of the introduction, starting with 'The word "animal" comes from'... The line within this paragraph stating, 'and sometimes excludes insects (although including such arthropods as crabs).' is highly problematic to my understanding of taxonomy. I fail to see how any proper 'insect' could possibly be classified as outside of the kingdom. We need an exact citation of which insects could possibly be outside of the classification, or this statement needs to be deleted very quickly. Perditor 15:34, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

The statement is refering to how some laws classify different kinds of living things. Don't expect the law to conform strictly to scientific classification. -- Donald Albury 23:59, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
What point does human law have in a scientific discussion? The article should reflect the scientific classification of insects as animals, not the arbitrary classification of laws with no basis in science. I believe that this sentence should be taken out, and because of the dispute as to Homo sapiens should be classified as an animal, there should be a sub section later on that deals with the controversies of human POV such as the classification on H. sapiens and some insects. Any objections? Perditor 19:34, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
Since this article has a general title of "animal" rather than a taxonomic title "Kingdom Animalia," some discussion of social issues is relevant. I agree that the article would be clearer if legal, philosophic and religious controversies were handled in separate sections from established science. --Sentience 02:30, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
The real purpose is to help stop laymen from inputting false information, same as the part about humans often not being considered animals. --Savant13 17:50, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Agnotozoa

On the Talk:Agnotozoa page, I argue that the taxon Agnotozoa has some limited historical precedent but isn't really used by biologists today. Unless someone makes a case for keeping it, I'm going to remove the name from the Animal article, but leave the Agnotozoa article up as a historical reference. Cephal-odd 23:22, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Pterobranchia & Chaetognatha

On February 8 of this year, a user added "and Pterobranchia" to the parenthetic description of "Chaetognatha (arrow worms)" in the taxobox. Unfortunately, I could find no reference that supports placement of pterobranchs within Chaetognatha, so I removed the reference and removed the (now redundant) wikification from the phrase "arrow worm".

Perhaps the good user intended to list pterobranchs as a separate phylum of deuterostome animals, which is may be justified, because some biologists appear to doubt that the two groups of hemichordates are each other's closest relatives. So Pterobranchia may or may not belong in the taxobox, but seemingly not with the arrow worms. Cephal-odd 05:38, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

differences in classification of superphyla

The taxobox in Animalia and the article lists the Ecdysozoa, Lophotrochozoa, and Platyzoa as separate superphyla at the same level as Deuterostomia The article and taxobox for Bilateria, to which all these groups belong, recognizes the first three of them as members of Protostomia, correlate to Deuterostomia, as does the classification in the talk for Animalia. There is also an article for Protostome; it & its taxobox similiarly group the three, as do the articles for Ecdysoza, Lophotrochozoa, and Platyzoa, all supported by both embryological and molecular data.

If these two scheme are in fact competitive analyses, surely the 2 hypotheses should at least be mentioned in all the relevant articles , instead of some silently adopting one and some the other. (I was taught protostomia, but that doesn't prove it correct) DGG 03:29, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I added a slight clarification that groups the protostome clades together, but we could use more about the higher phylogeny of animals. Cephal-odd 07:48, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

lack of punctuation

for some reason, the second opening paragraph has no punctuation at the end of it. I quote: "...include particular, more bestial individuals" (note the lack of period or other mark after individuals). Is there any reason for this?Werothegreat 21:11, 6 November 2006 (UTC) My mistake - now I just have to find out what happened to it all! I quite liked it :(--Menswear 21:19, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Evolution

I reverted the removal of the fossil range, but the IP who removed it has now explained why on the talk page:
"I deleted the part in Animalia about the dating of the Animalia Kingdom based upon evolutionary dating and techniques, because the last time I checked, a NPOV site doesn't have any affiliation with any beliefs, and that dating is inaccurate. There's an EvoWiki where that dating is acceptable; on Wikipedia I hoped I didn't have to deal with self-righteous stuck-up editors who wished as much as to impose their beliefs and dogmatic religion on us."
I replied:
"Thank you for providing an explanation. If you remove the dating from Animalia, though, it'll have to be removed from many other taxonomic groups, a controversial and time-consuming action. I suggest that you start a discussion about it at the village pump."
May others give their imput? --Gray Porpoise 21:35, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

How does this editor know the date is inaccurate? We should be reporting what the scientific literature says on this. If there is disagreement among reliable sources as to the period during which animal fossils appear in the geological record, that should be discussed in the article, but that is no reason to throw out the fossil range. -- Donald Albury 15:52, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
I understand this. Others apparently don't, though. --Gray Porpoise 22:20, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Animal Neurons

I have created a page animals by number of neurons, could we put a link on this page to that one? Paskari 15:15, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

On Single Celled Animals

The page currently does not address the fact that some single-celled organisms are classified as animals due to their probable descent from multicellular organisms (see myxozoa). --Savant13 13:53, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Recent Vandalism

User Dada43 recently vandalized this page. I have done full repairs. --Savant13 10:02, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

On humans not being animals

User 142.151.177.134, please stop repeatedly changing the article to insert your point of view that humans are not animals. That you have tried it at least seven times, and each time your changes are quickly removed (by different people, too) should indicate that the Wikipedia community does not agree with your unusual point of view. Granted, the people I know are not necessarily representative, but I do not believe I have ever met someone who does not consider human beings to be animals. Also, I feel I must point out that the reason you give for these changes, heresy (defined by Merriam-Webster to be "adherence to a religious opinion contrary to church dogma"), is not ground for removing or changing information. In fact, this clearly indicates a non-neutral point of view, as saying one is removing heretical material is tantamount to saying one is removing it because it does not conform to church beliefs, or specific point of view. Furthermore, much of the information in Wikipedia was once considered heresy (that the Earth is approximately spherical, that it revolves around the sun, that the laws of physics apply both to the heavens and to the Earth, and so on).

If even after reading this and carefully considering your own viewpoints you still very strongly about this, please discuss it here. As you can see, if you just make these sorts of changes without discussion or agreement, they will be reversed every time. I believe the article already represents the "nonhuman animal" category adequately when it mentions that colloquially people may use the term to mean nonhuman animals. Finally, I would like to point out Merriam-Webster's definition of animal. The primary (1) definition is "any of a kingdom (Animalia) of living things including many-celled organisms and often many of the single-celled ones (as protozoans) that typically differ from plants in having cells without cellulose walls, in lacking chlorophyll and the capacity for photosynthesis, in requiring more complex food materials (as proteins), in being organized to a greater degree of complexity, and in having the capacity for spontaneous movement and rapid motor responses to stimulation," which of course is how the article treats it. The secondary (2a) definition listed is "one of the lower animals as distinguished from human", which is also mentioned in the article, and indeed the definition itself uses the word "animal" with the meaning given in its primary definition. (The remainder of the definitions, which you are free to peruse, are not relevant to this discussion.) — [[User:Knowledge Seeker|Knowledge Seeker দ (talk)]] 21:17, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I completely agree that humans are animals, but see no reason why it should be explicitly stated in the first paragraph of the article. Objectively, this is no different from stating that horses or jellyfish are animals in the first paragraph, which is not what the introduction is for. I'll remove it, but if it comes back, I'll consider myself outvoted.
On the use of the word animal, it does vary from not meaning human, but I don't see this as a religious issue outside of fanatacism. The true origins of this distinction is in management, when you are dealing with humans you do different things than when dealing with almost any other animal. For instance, to reduce a population of an animal, it is best to open a hunting season if it is a large enough animal to be sporting to kill. The cause of the linguistic removal of humans from animals is instances like the above, not that people have souls or that people have dominion over the other animals. It isn't that someone heard the hebrew creation story, then thought to themselves 'well, if humans were made the day after animals, I'd better call them different things." Similarly, the soul or religion is not the cause of the difference between human children and animal offspring, or human food and animal feed. Actually, a big cause of this non-human definition of animal is that animal is an insult. A person who is an animal is crazed, if this meaning weren't attatched, maybe people wouldn't have such a problem with it. In any case, I can hardly see the sources written in the article as actual causes for why people say animal and don't mean to include humans.
Something intresting to note in this discussion on animals vs. humans is this: http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/spanish-go-ape-over-monkey-rights/2006/06/10/1149815360515.html - A new law in spain that gives human rights to apes. :) If we start treating some animals the same as other humans, we maybe not do different things with them than with dealing with other animals..

It's not just anon's point of view, but is widely held. I have therefore attributed it to "most people". That's close enough, and there's a link to Wildlife which expounds on the distinction in its intro. --Uncle Ed 14:53, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Most people do not think that, and unless you can cite a reliable source which says so, I will gladly remove it. It is just a religous POV which, for some reason, people wish to put in this article. It doesn't belong. --liquidGhoul 14:57, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I changed it to "many", pending evidence like a survey.

What proportion of people, do you think, is it that agree with the view that people are animals? Or "just animals" in the Peter Singer (animal rights) / PETA sense? --Uncle Ed 20:08, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Hullo. The second sentence in the second paragraph didn't make grammatical sense and was heavily edited. Subsequent sentences were removed and it was all nicely synthesised and referenced to the Oxford English Dictionary. The third paragraph is redundant (given the first) and was removed. Also, humans are animals. It's just a fact. Our biochemistry is so remarkably similar to apes and, well, all other mammals, marsupials and monotremes that to think otherwise is so religious-fundamentalist as to be laughable. There is, though a need for a definition of the term which would exclude humans. The place you'd find this would be in wiktionary. If there remains disagreement, might I suggest offended religious sorts consult _any_ reputable encyclopedia. You could always check out humans - there's the full scientific name. --Menswear 14:59, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

POV

  • There seems to be an emerging consensus within the scientific community that we should reject the philosophical outlook that says humans are ‘categorically superior’ to animals. [4]

If this point of view is "emerging" and has yet to become a "consensus" (even within the scientific community), then clearly it's at odds with the viewpoints of many other people.

There's at least one researcher who opposes that outlook:

  • ‘I believe that animal research is morally justified because animals are less valuable than human beings.’ John Martin, Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at University College London (UCL), does not mince his words. [ibid]]

So we should mention the dispute, rather than asserting that humans are animals. Perhaps a compromise is to say that biologists look only at the body and deliberately ignore the soul. Either to assert that we don't have souls, or more likely to assert that studying the soul (even if it exists) is beyond the bounds of biology. The bounds they've set for themselves.

These leads, of course to related Life Sciences like psychology. Not all schools of thought within psychology deny or exclude the soul.

Can we get a conversation going on this? --Uncle Ed 20:20, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

This article should not have this kind of information in it. If we include some people's POV on what constitutes an animal, then we have to include everyone's. Let's just stick to the facts. --liquidGhoul 23:53, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Humans are animals, end of. Michaelritchie200 08:50, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't see why being considered better or having more rights necessarily requires humans to be considered as separate from other animals. The humans race at large treats felis silvestris catus significantly better than musca domestica, even though both are animals. (Pro-vertebrate bias? Dunno. Doesn't matter.) It is similarly not a contradiction to have a moral system which views homo sapiens as significantly superior while still considering them animals. -- Milo

From a strictly scientific point of view, human beings are in fact animals.We share the same physiological systems as the mammals and we are driven by the same kinds of needs on a very basic level (such as gathering food and water, and reproducing). My belief is that all animals have adaptations, but most are physical rather than mental adaptations. Homo sapiens large brains, allow them to process cognitive thoughts well above that of any other species. It is this level of cognition which causes us to "think" that we are better than animals when in fact we share exactly the same fates. Many human beings could well be described as animals themselves, so the differences are not that great. - Ummagumma23

JHWH feels offended

The statement that humans are animals is highly controversial and must be erased. It tramples upon religious people's dignity. Their holy scripture says God created the first humans on a different day from animals and the Father explicitly gave Adam authority over all animals in the world. The Bible explicitly said Sodoma and Gomorra residents were all exterminated for having sex with beasts, thus JHWH showed human and animal cannot mix.

Also Karl Marx, the great communist philosopher said humans are differentiated from animals by the means of "work, ability to think and the ability to speak".

I also find it troubling that no mention is made of creationism is this article, unlike evolution. Whatever you think about those religios fanatics in the U.S. mid-west, Wikipedia is supposed to have a neutral point of view. (Btw, which is silly, e.g. what about Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol-Pot articles).

Hello, anonymous,
So maybe we can move humans into a Plant or a Bacteria article, maybe that will sattisfy all JHWH's and make them happy. I do agree that creationism should be mentioned, but only in Human article, since that refers to human belief, not to that of non-human animals. Beta m (talk)

I think it is the animals that should be offended by having humans included in the animal kingdom. I don't recall any wars waged by religous zelots, except humans. Maybe that can be the true differentiator between human and animal - the ability (or willingness) to kill the same species for a difference in philosophical thinking.

I think it's disrespectful to disregard the hard work of taxonomists just trying to make sense of all the species. Animal is not an insult, while there are differences between humans and the rest of the animals, it's important for us to know that we breathe oxygen, we react to pain, and all other attributes of humans physically not related to our souls. Also, the inclusion of creationism is skewed to the American point of veiw. It wouldn't be neutral and would be unfair to all of the Christians from the rest of the world that are suddenly being accused of being antagonistic to paleoarcheology on account of a few people in the United States.
An encyclopædia is a place for facts. Giving the facts is not the same as giving a point of view. The fact is that there is no evidence to support creationism whilst there is a heap of evidence to support evolution by natural selection. Humans are animals this is the fact. Jimp 01:33, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
It has nothing to do with evolution vs. creation. If creationism is true, humans are not animals and if evolution is true, humans are still not animals. "animal" by definition refers to nonhumans in the kingdom "Animalia". Despite what biologists say, that's the common usage of the term. Saying that humans are animals is no more of a fact than saying that Japanese people are caucasion. Helicoptor 00:53, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
Common usage of the term and the scientific usage are NOT THE SAME. That's all there is to it! Why must you go on to say that one is more valid than the other? The fact of the matter is that when biologists say "animal", their definition includes humans as well as insects. When most non-scientists say "animal", the definition usually does NOT include humans or insects. As I said below, it helps if you think of them as two different words that just happen to sound the same. It would be interesting to find out how the scientific and the common definitions diverged, but that is a matter for linguists, not me. Perhaps if someone can find out, it would be a usefull thing to mention in the article. Esn 01:19, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
All of your alleged "controversies" are only controversial among religious people who don't know a thing about science or how science works. The scientific consensus has long-ago been reached. Furthermore, the definition of "animals" that the Bible uses is different from the definition that "scientists" use; that's all there is to it. When the Bible uses it it means "every living thing except humans and plants", whereas today's scientific definition is somewhat different and is explained in the article. It may help if you think of them as different words that just happen to sound the same. Esn 16:25, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

It is not highly controversial. This sort of thing the same reason the userboxes have changed from "This user is an atheist" into "This user is interested in atheism". It's all political correctness. Scientists all agree that humans are animals - how can anyone not agree? - and as far as I'm concerned, it is a fact and so belongs in this encyclopedia. An animal is anything alive that is not bacteria, a plant or a fungi. Just leave it now. If you're offended, ignore it! Michaelritchie200 08:53, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

humans evolved from alien embroyos, that is my belief, should it be included in this scientific article as well? if your going to allow those pesky zealots to get away with it, the higher beings will not be too happy! 71.52.182.244 18:04, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Multicellular

Are all animals multicellular? The second sentence suggests that some are unicellular, but then the rest of the article treats animals as multicellular. Any experts care to comment? -- postglock 15:46, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Yes, all animals are multicellular. Here's just one source:
  • Evers, Christine A., Lisa Starr. Biology:Concepts and Applications. 6th ed. United States:Thomson, 2006. ISBN 0-534-46224-3.
Animals, by the biological classification definition, are all multicellular. Unicellular organisms are classified into the Archaebacteria or Eubacteria Kingdoms, as well as some being in the Protista and Fungi Kingdoms.-- Knails

Patron saint?

I haven't been following this article too closely. What is the purpose of the "patron saints" table? The article provides no context and I find it perplexing. — Knowledge Seeker দ 08:28, September 12, 2005 (UTC)

Apparantly User:Heebiejeebieclub has started linking the relevant patron saints to all articles. So far he has done Accountancy to Archaelogy. Personally I feel they belong on a List of Patron Saints page rather than in each article (who is going to look up Animal in order to find its Patron Saint.) But I don't feel strongly enough about it to remove them. Rasmus (talk) 20:30, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
I don't see how this really improves the article; it seems rather irrelevant. I agree that this would be better placed on a list of patron saints; I will remove it from here. I'll leave a note on his talk page too. — Knowledge Seeker দ 22:17, September 12, 2005 (UTC)


I don't feel strongly either way, but I think it's kind of cute. Sometimes I'll look up something to know somewhat trivial things about it, and the patron saint of animals or accounting qualifies for that. Lotusduck 19:04, 19 November 2005 (UTC)lotusduck
If I wanted to know, say, the patron saint of postmen, I would look for a list of patron saints, not go to the article on postmen. Saccerzd 11:51, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikispecies

Shouldn't this page just link to Wikispecies?

The Ecdysozoa is a controversial hypothesis

It should be made clear that the group Ecdysozoa is a hypothetical group of animals that was suggested by Aguinaldo et al (1997), but it is still a very controversial hypothesis. Several recent papers have supported the existence of the Ecdysozoa, but other recent papers have refuted its existence as a real group of closely related animals (favouring instead the Coelomata hypothesis, which implies a completely different relationship between the major animal groups). Baoilleach 10:58, 2 January 2006 (UTC)Baoilleach

Request for better main image

File:WW2 TitlePicture For Wikipedia Article.jpg
Example collage image.

I am requesting that we place a more inclusive image in the taxobox, something like a collage, similiar to the image used for World War II. This way we could include sea animals, insects, birds, all in one image.
I will try to work on something like this later, but I only have MS Paint, so I encourage somebody with more experience/capabilities to also take up the challenge. 68.143.166.174 19:14, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Quantifying biodiversity

Could we have approximate numbers for how many animal species of each type are known? Does this information already exist elsewhere on Wikipedia? I'd like to know how many different lifeforms science currently recognizes.--StAkAr Karnak 01:45, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I was looking for the total number of animal species, but could not find it on this page. -- Junuxx 08:48, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
No one knows. For instance, see this. -- Donald Albury 15:56, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
The estimated number of undiscovered species does vary a great deal. But there does seem to be a concensus that the number of species already named and described is over one million, and less than two million. Maybe that first approximation could find a place in the article. Cephal-odd 16:23, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Picture

It seems unrepresentative and out of place to have a picture and caption of sea nettles heading an article on animals. I think it would be best to have a picture or collage showing many representatives of the diverse forms of animal life. If we had to pick one generic representative of the animal kingdom, I don't know why anyone would pick a sea nettle. NTK 02:09, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Ah, an anon beat me to this idea. Now someone talented should do it! NTK 02:09, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
Done :) --mo-- (Talk | #info | ) 04:56, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Energy and growth sources

Is the following complete?

Animals grow by indirectly using the energy of sunlight. Plants use this energy to turn air into simple sugars using a process known as photosynthesis. These sugars are then used as the building blocks which allow the plant to grow. When animals eat these plants (or eat other animals which have eaten plants), the sugars produced by the plant are used by the animal. They are either used directly to help the animal grow, or broken down, releasing stored solar energy, and giving the animal the energy required for motion. This process is known as glycolysis.

Are fats and proteins sugars? Don't animals also eat fungi? Fat Red 03:18, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Of course we do. Ever eaten a mushroom? No, it's incomplete. Jimp 04:29, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Of course, a few animals don't grow by using the energy of sunlight (even indirectly), e.g. hydrothermal vent communities. Gdr 13:43, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Examples

"Some well-known types of animals, listed by their common names:" the Examples section starts. This list is gradually expanding. When is it going to end? How many well-known animals can you think of? I suggest moving this section to its own article before things get out of hand. Perhaps we could leave a short version here. Whether or not the list is moved, though, something should be done to halt its growth and even perhaps to reverse it. Jimp 04:27, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. While I could see some general kinds of animals (dog, cat, pig, horse, etc.) being listed, listing a large number of dog breeds seems like something that should be done on, well, a dog page. --BinaryTed 22:01, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
Human should be removed from the list of well-known animals because it's quite obvious that we're well-known as we are ourselves and besides, we're not animals. "animal" refers to members of the kingdom Animalia that are not human. CarLot 02:17, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
How are humans not animals? - UtherSRG (talk) 06:31, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
Animal refers to members of the kingdom Animalia. Humans are animals. — Knowledge Seeker দ 00:53, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
No it doesn't. Humans are not animals. Saying that they are is just silly. 64.192.107.242 19:33, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
Saying humans are not animals is just silly. And ignorant. - UtherSRG (talk) 19:37, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
You must have a poor understanding of the English language then, UtherSRG. Anyone with a good understanding of the English language would know that the word "animal" does not include humans, as much as they know that the word "blue" does not refer to green. 64.194.44.178 17:23, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
That's simply not true. Take a look at the first definition of animal and human, both of which place us firmly in the kingdom Animalia. The precise, scientific definition of "animal" includes us incontrovertibly. bcasterline t 18:44, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
That's because many biologists are ignorant of actual linguistic usage. What "animal" means is the question of linguistics, not biology. "animal" simply does not include humans in general speech. 64.194.44.178 22:44, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
Actually I think you have it backwards. The term "animal" came to refer to non-human animals because those who used the term that way were ignorant of biology and phylogenetics. In any case, this article covers the scientific kingdom Animalia, not the (imprecise) colloquial usage of "animal", so to refer to human beings as animals is entirely appropriate. bcasterline t 23:47, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
If we're not in the animal kingdom, where are we? Plantae? bcasterlinetalk 19:44, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
Nowhere. We're simply humans. We're hominoids, primates and mammals (all of which are scientific terms), but not animals. 64.194.44.178 22:57, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
The opening line of this article states that Animals are a major group of organisms, classified as the kingdom Animalia. Since humans, Homo sapiens, are classified in the kingdom Animalia, humans are considered animals. Check Wikispecies to verify the classification if you don't beleive me for some reason. Another thought: might the debate over the term animal including humans be a difference in British and American English? As an American, I have always known humans to be included when refering to animals. timrem 23:15, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
I'm thinking the only reason they feel they're seperate is for religious reasons. I know of no one that claims Humans to not be animals for any other reason.

Biologically animal, I don't think anyone can disagree that humans are biologically (genetically) animal. But it is true though, that when we refer to animals very often, we mean to say others except humans. I think this is where the conflict arises, there doesn't seem to be a contradiction in term of biology but rather the uses of the term 'animal.' We often use that term do differenciate the animal kingdom from us. The solution I think would be to clarify and say that 'while humans biologically are animals, we often exclude them when we use that term.' I don't think anyone would disagree with this. Right? Fad (ix) 18:53, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

There's already a section Animal#Usage of the word animal, even though it probably belongs in a dictionary rather than an encyclopeda. I rarely hear "animal" used in a way that excludes humans, so I'm not sure I agree with phrases like "we often exlude them" or "in everyday usage". But that's a minor point. bcasterline t 21:55, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Considering this discussion went completely off track, I am going to bring it back on. Since there has currently been no objections, I will remove the list in 1 day. If anyone has a problem, please bring it up here and we can sort something out. Also, if you have an objection, give a reason! There has been good reason for removing it (it is useless and too large), so if you know of a use for it, state it, and we may go about moving it to List of animals or something. Thanks --liquidGhoul 13:52, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Removed --liquidGhoul 13:03, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Whether humans are animals is hardly relevant to a taxonomy page about animals in general. Any discussion of the topic is likely to confuse or outrage lots of people without benefitting the page much. If there aren't any objections I'm going to move the discussion of the usage of the word animal to a dictionary page tomorrow. Darkmiles22 04:20, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Humans and animals

Proposed intro text:

While many people view animals as being distinct from human beings (see wildlife), biologists classify humans as Mammals and thus consider them part of the animal kingdom (see also animal rights).

I inserted this (or words to the effect) 3 times. I thought this was a good summary of the discussion above, but I was reverted each time with no discussion on the talk page.

Is it "wrong" somehow to include points of view other than that of biologists in this article? If so, which "rule" does this violate?

Doesn't Wikipedia's neutral point-of-view (NPOV) policy contemplate inclusion of all significant points of view regarding any subject on which there is division of opinion? And isn't there division of opinion on whether "people are animals"?

  • Humans are not animals. Saying that they are is just silly.
  • Saying humans are not animals is just silly. And ignorant.

Are these just blog entries, or do they summarize well-referenced information? --Uncle Ed 15:02, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

chaetognaths

Recently someone moved the Chaetognatha back under the deuterostomes, where they'd been moved out of earlier. There are some resemblances between chaetognaths among deuterostomes, but recent studies support classifying them as early-branching protostomes or even basal bilaterians. Some of this evidence is cited in the Chaetognatha article.

The best compromise for now may be to list the chaetognaths as bilaterians but not deuterostomes. The text of the Animal article now mentions the dispute about the chaetognaths' affinities. Cephal-odd 05:01, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Phyla

I have a book about the ocean, written just last year, that lists Pogonophora, Pterobranchia, Echiura, and Vestimentifera as their own phyla, yet we have them grouped under different phyla. This book is from the Smithsonian Institution, so, yeah, you can't get much more official than that. Belgium EO 05:18, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, Echiura is treated as a phylum here, but indeed the others are not. Taxonomy is, contrary to popular belief, a matter of opinion. While some people may choose to treat a taxon at one rank, others may choose to treat it at another. There can never be an "official" treatment. Sadly, there are no references at Siboglinidae which we can check. It may be warranted to file a move request, if the taxa are still most commonly treated by reputable works (including your Smithsonian book) as phyla. It may also be worth taking it to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life, where someone may know something about the animals in question. --Stemonitis 11:35, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
An example of the uncertainty in classification can be seen at the Taxonomicon, which allows you look at the placement of 'clades' in various schemes. For instance, Pterobranchia is classified by most taxonomists as a class under Hemichordata, but it has also been classified as a subphylum by a couple of authorities. Pogonophora has been classified as a genus, a class, a subphylum, and a phylum by various authorities. Echiura is rather stable, as the authorities differ only between a subphylum or a phylum. Finally, Vestimentifera has been classified by various authorities as a class, an order and a phylum. -- Donald Albury 04:19, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Hmm! The only entries Taxonomicon has for Siboglinidae is as a family. Several Google hits agree with that. Our article may be based on this. More investigation is in order, but I need to go to bed. -- Donald Albury 04:28, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
My understanding is that the first pogonophoran tube worms discovered were classified in the annelid family Siboglinidae. Later biologists separated them into the phylum Pogonophora. The giant tube worms from hot vents also belonged to that phylum, although some separted them into their own phylum, Vestimentifera.
More recently, molecular phylogenies have shown them to belong among the annelids after all. This is the impetus behind restoring their original assignment as Sibloglinidae (which has the -idae suffix of a Linnaean family). This assignment may still be disputed, but I don't know of any studies that have refuted it. Maybe some workers recognize pogonophorans as annelid descendents but grant them a separate phylum because they look so different. The Tree of Life page about annelids has a few words about the placement of this phylum/family.
Regarding the Smithsonian Institution, there is an interesting connection. One of the authors of a morphological study that concludes that pogonophorans (siboglinids) are nested well within Annelida, Kristian Fauchald, is the curator of worms at the Smithsonian. So this book about the ocean may reflect a disagreement within the organization, or could be a popular work that's using a more traditional classification.
Cephal-odd 08:09, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
I like TOLWeb and I like molecular (cladistic) phylogenies, but I'm not a trained biologist, and the morphological taxonomies have their supporters in WP, as well. While we can (and should) make clear the history and current status of a taxon's place in widely accepted classifications (giving due weight per WP:NPOV), the taxoboxes force us to choose one scheme over another. While I would like to see us use the latest molecular phylogenies in taxoboxes, they are subject to revision as new studies are performed and older studies are re-interpreted.
As for the Smithsonian book, I agree this is most likely a popular work, and as such will not be cited by biologists as an authority on the taxonomy of these worms. It does meet the requirements of WP:RS, but there are many other reliable sources that support (with evidence and analysis) other classifications. -- Donald Albury 13:42, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Animals as Parasites?

Should all animals be defined as parasites, as, like their Opisthokonta relatives the fungi, they live off of other organisms?

No. Parasite has a much more restricted technical definition. The word you are looking for is heterotroph which cuold be literally translated as "eating others". Eluchil404 09:13, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Largest kingdom

Is the kingdom Animalia the largest kingdom of living things?--Crustaceanguy 21:15, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

In terms of described species, yes, thanks to the arthropods. In terms of number of individuals, or total body mass, that would almost certainly be Bacteria. -- Donald Albury 17:51, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you.--Crustaceanguy 02:27, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Locomotion?

I am quite sure that not all animals can generate locomotion. Look at the phylum Poriferaor sponges, they certianly cannot move. I know it says "in general". But I think this statement should be moved from the begining statement.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.142.130.34 (talk • contribs).

But, see "Locomotion of sponges and its physical mechanism." -- Donald Albury 23:15, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
All animals can move at some stage of their life cycle, including sponges. The article used to say that. --Savant13 11:41, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Ecdysozoa still a controversial clade

It is worth noting that the Ecdysozoa clade is controversial, with little supporting fossil evidence, and molecular studies (mostly from insect and nematode genomes) continuing to almost evenly divide between support for the Ecdysozoa and for the alternative Coelomata, which would group arthropods with deuterostomes (the difficulty is that nematodes are fast-evolving, which molecular phylogenetics struggles with handling). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ceolas (talk • contribs) 19:30, 1 May 2007 (UTC).

Yes, all of that should be included. Are there any review papers which specifically address the relative frequency with which the two schemes are reported? --Stemonitis 20:02, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Focus on Bilateria

Why is there so much focus on the bilaterians in the section "groups of animals"? The four subsections should be moved to Bilateria, right? Bendž|Ť 16:04, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Maybe because 36 out of 41 or 42 phyla are bilaterians? -- Donald Albury 00:05, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
I can see how this would lend itself to there being more articles on the Bilateria than Radiata, etc., but shouldn't this one focus on traits common to all animals? Bendž|Ť 12:12, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

OK, I was being a bit of a smart ass above. Let me think about it. Do you have any specific ideas for starters on how to revise the article? -- Donald Albury 11:06, 16 July 2007 (UTC)


Most successful phyla?

Why Mollusca and Annelida are the two most successful phyla? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zuxy (talk • contribs) 19:49, August 24, 2007 (UTC)

Animals WikiProject

A few of us are interested in creating a subproject of WikiProject Biology and WikiProject Tree of life specifically focussed on animals. I thought I'd post here as well in case anyone is interested and has missed the proposal at the WikiProject Tree of life talk page. I've created a very rough draft page to get structure and content sort out before the page 'goes live' here. Richard001 01:54, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Anybody watching this?

Does anybody at all watch this article? The entire section 'groups of animals' has been gone for over ten days. Anybody who watches this article, and I hope there are some, is doing a rather poor job of it if they don't notice this. I've attempted to restore the material lost from an older version. Richard001 02:41, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I just started watching it - hopefully you won't have to do that again. Cheers, Corvus coronoides talk 15:00, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Seriously, was nobody watching it to start with? We have some serious problems if articles as important as this are unwatched. Richard001 23:31, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

I've had this article on my watchlist for over a year. However, I generally assume that vandalism is reverted correctly without checking to confirm. Unfortunately some vandal edits slipped through in this case. Mgiganteus1 23:58, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Changed photo

I changed the photo with a compilation of featured pictures of animals (a mixture of featured pictures at commons and Wikipedia). I think the new one is a lot more representative of different animal ranks than the previous, and the quality of the photos is much better (obviously, since they are all featured pictures). If anyone has comments about the change please let me know. J. Hall • (Talk) 22:05, 1 October 2007 (UTC)


That: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Animal_diversity_October_2007.jpg is a nice photo, but it does not really illustrate the diversity of animals as given in its title. It is all vertabrates (including 2 fish and 2 mammals), arthropods (including two insects) and a snail. A better photo for this purpose might would have at most 1 representative from any single class and include representatives from other phylums like a nematode, a rotifer, a coral and a starfish. KevinTernes (talk) 14:43, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I've noted this in similar terms at commons:Image talk:Animal diversity October 2007.jpg. Unless a much more representative picture is made the old one is far better, so I have restored it for now. Richard001 (talk) 01:45, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Order of Presentation

Why are deuterostomes placed directly after the sponges and coelocentrates/cnidaria? The last section of this article seems to proceed from complexity to simplicity, obfuscating the evolutionary sequence. All living thinga are current branches of the evolutionary tree, and thus in a sense equally evolved, but surely it makes sense to list animal phyla in order of their complexity, so as to foster comprehension of evolutionary sequence and make for ease of reference. I frankly suspect creationist meddling. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.116.21.216 (talk • contribs) 7:46, October 4, 2007

That seems to be a big jump. Perhaps you should assume good faith in that they were listed as such because the person who added them didn't know the order of complexity. The article needs a LOT of work, but no sense in making accusations. J. Hall • (Talk) 16:23, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
Actually, I like the current order, with deuterostomes preceding protostomes. It's tempting to think of the deuterostomes as more complex because we mammals are among them. But are deuterostomes as such more complex than protostomes? Starfishes, acorn worms, and sea squirts don't seem inherently more complex than snails and shrimps. Complexity has evolved many times independently in the tree of life.
My impression is that the classification lists less diverse branches before more diverse ones. Deuterostomes are arguably a side branch to the giant protostome radiation, which has borne far more species even in each of its major subgroups. Cephal-odd (talk) 08:08, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Porifera (sponges) as Metazoa or not?

The initial definition of this article's subject synonymizes "animal" with "metazoan." But by many scientists' definitions, this term "Metazoa" excludes phyla such as sponges (which are then placed in Parazoa since they lack basic metazoan features such as tissues). Even the classification on the right sidebar of the page shows that Porifera is not considered part of Metazoa. Later in the article, images of sponges are shown, and sponges are brought in explicitly as subject matter to be included under Animalia, but typically as "exceptions" to rules set by the other animals, i.e., Metazoans. There seems to be some internal inconsistency here as to how to treat sponges in relation to Animalia/Metazoa.

I think the problem here is that this page has been set up to house both Animalia and Metazoa as synonyms. For many scientists, and for purposes of informational clarity, this synonymization simply doesn't work. For example, several statements in the article have to be qualified due to sponges not quite "making the grade" (pun intended). If this page did not synonymize Animalia with Metazoa, then such statements would no longer have to be phrased weakly as "exceptions" but could be more strongly stated in the form "the Animalia embraces both motile and non-motile species" (for example).

Therefore I believe this page should be for Animalia, explicitly including both Parazoa and Metazoa, and should be written as such, rather than from a Metazoan perspective. A separate page already exists for Parazoa, so why not give Metazoa its own page and make its definition explicit and phyletic rather than falsely synonymizing it with Animalia? If some editors object to the exclusion of sponges from Porifera, let's hear the reasons, whether biological or practical. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.204.5.240 (talk) 14:30, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

  • The latest word is that Sponges/Parazoa fall within the Metazoa. (Broad phylogenomic sampling improves resolutionos of the animal tree of life. Casey Dunn, et. al., Nature, Vol.452, pp. 745-749) What this article says is that the animal tree looks like this:
                  |---------- Bilaterians (all other animals)
                  |
            ______|     |---- Cnidaria (Jellyfish) 
           |      |_____|
           |            |
           |            |---- Porifera (Sponges) [Parazoa]
 Metazoa---| 
           |
           |------ Ctenophora (Comb jellyfish)

Thus your concern has been made moot by the most recent research results. Parazoa falls deep within Animals/Metazoa. Nick Beeson (talk) 19:14, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Clarification of phrasing required

Under 

   Deuterostomes

It says: 

    Deuterostomes differ from the other Bilateria, called protostomes, 
    in several ways. In both cases there is a complete digestive tract. 
    However, in protostomes the initial opening (the archenteron) 
    develops into the mouth, and an anus forms separately. 
    In deuterostomes this is reversed.

Whilst the last sentence conjours up all sorts of amusing images (e.g. the initial opening (of the digestive tract) developes into the anus), a better way of phrasing than 'this is reversed' (in which it is not at all clear which of several possibilities 'this' refers to) ought to be found. Alternatively, omit this sentence completely, since the subsequent description renders it superfluous. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.132.202.24 (talk • contribs) December 31, 2007

Article Section Suggestion for, "The Section: 'Relationship to humans?'"

Although humans themselves are within the kingdom of Animalia, I believe it would be a good idea to write a section in this article on how animals affect human culture, diet, and life in general (as well as anything else that's relevant to the subject).

Soporaeternus (talk) 17:10, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Shouldn't that be how humans use or otherwise deal with animals? I suspect that the topic is far to large and diffuse for this article. -- Donald Albury 20:52, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
Human-animal interaction is called Anthrozoology, and it's a massive topic in of itself, so I'd agree with Donald here. I'd say the first step, if this is an interest to editors, would be improving Anthrozoology so that content from it can be used within this article. Justin chat 21:03, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

"Usually multicellular"

I have to take issue with this. Myxozoans are unicellular but their spores are multicellular and have cell junctions. The way I read the article, it seems to infer that Myxozoans are unicellular which is oversimplification at best and wrong at worst. All of the sources I've found state that animals are multicellular. Before I change it, I'm curious if anyone has a source that indicates the opposite (or even a source that states Myxozoans are unicellular. Justin chat 07:52, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

And it says in Wikipedia (so it must be true) that Buddenbrockia plumatellae is a multi-cellular myxozoan. Perhaps making the change with a footnote that most myxozoans are singular-celled during part of their life-cycle would be sufficient. -- Donald Albury 13:41, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Picture of Human

Shouldnt there be a picture of a human being in the main pic? Terrasidius (talk) 00:21, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Ctenophoa basal?

I added a blurb from the phylogenomic study publish in the March 05 Nature. Surprised there was nothing here after a month. If someone can duplicate the tree they came up with, that would be a nice addition. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kwamikagami (talk • contribs) April 5, 2008

Quote

I would like to add a quote to the top of the page. This is it. DarkLordofSith (talk) 03:01, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

"We should venture on the study of every kind of animal without distaste; for each and all will reveal to us something natural and something beautiful." -Aristotle

Why? I see that you added that quote to Biology without discussion, and it was promptly reverted. This is Wikipedia, an encyclopedia, and the article is about Animals. WP has a sister project WikiQuote, for collections of quotes. The above quote might even be pertinent in an article about human attitudes towards animals, but I don't see a place for it in this article. -- Donald Albury 08:44, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

vandalism

someone replaced the article with some gibberish. i changed it back. Gigakight (talk) 02:32, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Contradictory descriptions as second largest phylum

Both Nematoda (roundworms; in Ecdysozoa) and Mollusca (mollusks; in Lophotrochozoa) are described as the "second-largest animal phylum" (with or without the hyphen). Could someone with access to the references clarify this? Thanks. 96.245.212.151 (talk) 02:03, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Another question: are all of the entries in the main infobox at the top right, starting with "Superphylum Ecdysozoa", indented one level too many? The previous Superphylum, Deuterostomia, seems to be one level higher (outward). 96.245.212.151 (talk) 02:18, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm new to Wiki so apologies if I've added this message incorrectly.

If possible, we would like to add an external link to a-z-animals.com. We are developing an encyclopedia of animals which can be updated and contributed to by visitors - a similar idea to Wiki but the site is specifically about animals and the site is targeted towards children. I feel the link would be a great addition to this article since this article would be very confusing to a child.

I understand that Wiki is not a place for endless links but I hope you will see we are trying to create a quality resource which will be of interest to this article's visitors.

Thanks for your time!

Neilskirrow (talk) 05:40, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Neil. The reason your link may not be included is because WP discourages linking to other wikis. Moreover, children confused by this article would be encouraged to visit the Simple English WP article Animal. Carl.bunderson (talk) 20:57, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Etymology?

How about do an etymology for 'animal'? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.174.82.195 (talk) 08:34, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Size errors remain

The article ANIMAL still has size errors. Nematomorpha and Acanthocephala are not microscopic.Zylon 00:42, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

FISH ARE NOT ANIMALS!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vulcurdil (talk • contribs) 21:10, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I created a new article called "Safari Cards." I'm sure some of you owned those in the 1970s, so please feel free to edit it.


Also the article on Dunkleosteus claims the size was 3m not 10m. I'm no expert so I wont fix it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.169.93.75 (talk) 07:28, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

"The word "animal" comes from the Latin word animals"

Do we really need this? --Henry W. Schmitt (talk) 08:04, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Presumably some readers want to know the origin of a word. The question of whether we should mention the origin of words in Wikipedia, or just rely on Wiktionary to supply that information, is a general one best addressed at a higher level (Wikipedia:Village pump, perhaps). -- Donald Albury 13:45, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I think we should add the fact that "The word "animal" comes from the Latin word animal" because many other articles on wikipedia describe the origin of words that the article concerns for instance the article on Anarchism says that the word Anarchism is derived from the Greek words a-without and archons-rulers and the article on Atheism states that the word English word atheism is derived from the French word athéisme which was in turn derived from the Greek word ἄθεος.--Fang 23 (talk) 13:21, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I thought it came from anima not animal. St. Jimmy 21:36, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Surely the correct way to express it is along the lines of... "The word 'animal' is Latin in origin", or "the word 'animal' is taken from Latin" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.132.202.24 (talk) 15:15, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Given the Latin word is "animale" or "animalis" (gender neutral) the article was wrong anyway. It's fixed and cited so it shouldn't be an issue. Justin chat 21:28, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

The word animal is from the Latin "animal." The nominative singular of the Latin word has the same spelling as in English. Please fix or delete the etymology altogether. Schaffman (talk) 12:13, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Bad article

This is a bad article. One needs a degree in Biology and one in Latin to read it. I just want to know in English where various animals fit in the classification. There is a picture of a tiger ther in the box. Where do tigers fit in?--58.165.128.120 (talk) 05:23, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

You have a point, to some degree. I am no biologist. How many people search "animal" when they want to know where a tiger fits in. Why not just go to tiger? You are right in that some parts are incomprehensible to non-experts. But it is simply too inconvenient to label each family, genus, order, etc., with a brief definition (i.e.: mustilidae: otters, weasels, badgers, and...). I think.--76.16.75.236 (talk) 00:13, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
One problem is that there are a lot of technical terms that could just as easily be replaced with layman's terms, and they're all wikilinked rather than followed by a brief layman's definition. Nobody should be expected to read another article every three words in order to understand the text. Dinoguy2 (talk) 03:02, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand why this article is so incomplete. There are over 35 phylium in Kingdom Animalia. This article does not even mention the most common phylium, Phylum Chordata and it's subphylum Vertebrata. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.36.143.211 (talk) 20:35, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Earliest animals pushed back to the Cryogenian (635 MYA)

Love et al (2009) "Fossil steroids record the appearance of Demospongiae during the Cryogenian period" Nature 457, 718-721 doi:10.1038/nature07673 Sabine's Sunbird talk 02:14, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Panthera tigris

In that box to the right, at the top of the page, underneath that where it lists the animals shown, it said, "Pantera tigris (cordate)" As far as I know, cordates are aquadic animals, and it should be pretty darn obvious that Pantera Tigris refers to a tiger. Come on, people! I wonder if there's any more errors like that in this article...? Anyway, I changed 'cordate' to 'tiger', to avoid further confusion. Cloudy fox 001 (talk) 16:45, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Tigers are vertebrates, and all vertebrates are Chordates. The images are there to show an example from selected phylums, like molluscs or arthropods. Panthera tigris does not refer to anything, it's the scientific name of the specie. 'Tiger' is an English common name for the same specie. AtikuX (talk) 09:24, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Lede change

I think we should change the lead photo/collage. The animals in the collage have too simliar colorations. I think we should not only have animals from different phylums but also ones with different colors. I'll be willing to create a new collage of animals with different colors. Anybody object? Bobisbob2 (talk) 17:03, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Species are not proper nouns

A dog is a common noun. Lassie is a proper noun. Do not capitalize common nouns. Yes, even when you are interested in discussing the class. The only common noun animal names that should be capitalized are those that derive from proper nouns: "Virginia creeper" for instance. This is the norm for the written language. Is Chicago, AP, NYT, Britanica etc. style. It is right out of normal textbooks. Wikipedia is forwarding a peculiar usage driven by select groups, not yet accepted in general writing. English is not GERMAN! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.82.57.163 (talk) 13:06, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Formal names of species are proper nouns, and must always be capitalized. By convention, we don't capitalize the Species Epithet unless it's part of an article title, because the Genus Taxon (which must never be omitted) is regarded as taking care of the proper noun thing. By the way, a Genus Taxon alone is still the proper name of that Genus. Dogs as such are only capitalized at the start of a sentence. Humans are bound to that same rule, and so is everyone else. I, for one, however, am tired of seeing the use of a lowercase "c" on Canis familiaris or a lowercase "h" on Homo sapiens. The Mysterious El Willstro (talk) 05:32, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Second Largest Animal Phylum?

The article claims in different places that the Nematoda and the Mollusca are each the second largest animal phylum. At least one of these claims is wrong. Can we fix this? 216.156.120.62 (talk) 00:33, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, this was previously brought up on October 15th, but no one has addressed it yet. I would change it myself, but I don't have access to a reliable source. 12.12.33.153 (talk) 04:49, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Colin Tudge (The Variety of Life), states that there are "about 100,000 known species [of molusc] [p226]", and that "about 20,000 species of nematode have been described, but the true species list should probably run to many millions [p202]", so I guess the jury is still out! FredV (talk) 14:40, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
We shouldn't be calling something "the second largest phylum", since we don't know for sure what is, and it depends entirely on how you define species. Just say second largest in terms of described species or something. Richard001 (talk) 07:07, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Are all animals motile or not?

The introduction states "most animals are motile," and then a few paragraphs later in the Characteristics section, it's stated that "all animals are motile" as a defining characteristic. I'd fix it myself, but I don't know which is correct.

Any biologists out there care to weigh in? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Severoon (talk • contribs) 01:13, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

I am not aware of any animal that is not motile at some stage in its life cycle. There are several animals that are sessile (that is, non-motile) in their adult form (e.g. corals; sea-squirts), but these animals have motile larval / juvenile forms. I am also (philosophically) uncomfortable with the idea of "defining characteristics" for real-world classes - for example, if we discovered a type of sea-squirt without a motile juvenile form we would surely still class it as an animal (it would be "the only animal with no motile form"). FredV (talk) 11:52, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Bizarre Latin etymology

The article currently says:

"The word "animal" comes from the Latin word animale, neuter of animalis"

I learnt a bit of Latin in school and this is complete nonsense as far as I can tell. The only Latin noun for "animal" I know of is animal (genitive animalis) which would just be written animal.

Also, a noun can't be the "neuter of" something; a noun IS neuter, or it is not. And in fact the world animal is neuter, but I don't see what this has to do with anything.

I have no idea about the "anima" connection, but given the other problems I don't trust it very much. Animal is obviously cognate with anima somehow, but "is derived from"? That's a big claim.

I'll change the section and leave out the anima bit. If I'm the one going crazy, feel free to let me know.

Dissimul (talk) 06:16, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Automate archiving?

The action in reference has been completed.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Does anyone object to me setting up automatic archiving for this page using MiszaBot? Unless otherwise agreed, I would set it to archive threads that have been inactive for 30 days and keep ten threads.--Oneiros (talk) 14:11, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

 Done--Oneiros (talk) 22:54, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Biosafety of animal...

--222.64.219.241 (talk) 01:22, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Please add the human image to the article as well...

  • Human--222.67.204.34 (talk) 07:50, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
  • The image we aready have at the top, I feel is not diverse enough in its sampling of representative animals. There are only three phyla represented (Chordata, Arthropoda, and Mollusca). I think a less biased distribution could easily be constructed while keeping the animals familiar enough for a layperson to recognize them. If we keep 11 spots, put i) Darwin, Linnaeus, or some other human, ii) another mammal, iii) reptile or bird, iv) another vertebrate (fish or amphibian), v) another deuterostome (starfish), vi) insect, vii) arachnid or crustacean, viii) mollusk, ix) some kind of worm, x) coral or jellyfish, and xi) sponge.Dhicks3 (talk) 18:08, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
I think this would be a significant improvement. Your proposals sound good to me - a reasonable representation of the diversity of the group, slightly (but reasonably) biased towards the familiar "typical" animals. People will, of course, argue endlessly about the "best" choice of images. FredV (talk) 10:01, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
So, I went ahead and made a JPEG like this, but I'm not really sure where to provisionally upload it pending some kind of consensus. I'll look around and post it somewhere. All the images should be free to use, as they are from Wikipedia articles about animals.Dhicks3 (talk) 19:21, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Are you not men? 90.210.185.234 (talk) 08:31, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

This thing: {{clear}}

What is the purpose of the {{clear}} at the beginning of the Notes section? It seems (in my browser, Safari) to create a lot of unattractive whitespace. Intelligentsium 00:36, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from 199.184.30.51, 12 April 2010

{{editsemiprotected}} In the first image the cell is not in 'early metaphase' as stated in the legend but in late prometaphase.

199.184.30.51 (talk) 20:32, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Not done for now: It says early anaphase. I don't know if you read that well, so I'm not changing anything yet. --JokerXtreme (talk) 20:51, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Hatnote to Animal (clothing) Animal article

I would like to add a hatnote to this page for Animal (clothing)Animal Does anyone have any objections to this? ClareZJ (talk) 10:41, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

There is a hatnote already to Animal (disambiguation). Animal (clothing) is already listed on that page. Directly listing this clothing brand on this page would give undue weight to that one use over other uses of the word animal. ~~ GB fan ~~ talk 13:30, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
We call that kind of promotion "hatspam," a type of "linkspam." -Stevertigo (w | t | e) 20:15, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Common usage of "animal" as an exclusifier vs. scientific usage as an inclusifier

I recently added a little treatment of the common, colloquial usage of "animal:"

While scientific classification is inclusive in classifying humans as part of animalia or the "animal kingdom," humans are not "animals" in the common sense of the word: The term "animal" is commonly used to exclusively distinguish non-human creatures from humans —similar to the word "beasts." The word "animal" can be a pejorative when applied to human beings, and is often meant to indicate a human being of lower worth than other humans.

I think its more than important to see Wiki articles as bases for concepts, not just particular terms. So while its important to foster scientific understanding, its a logical, linguistic, and cultural error to simply assume that the word "animal" has been redefined by science, which in fact is —putting aside taxonomy —using it as a mass inclusifier. -Stevertigo (w | t | e) 20:15, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

The information you have added is not sourced at all. To stay in the article there needs to be a reliable source to verify the information. I do not believe the information will stand, it is to subjective because for every source you find that agrees with your POV, I am sure someone else can find a source that disagrees with it. I have added a fact tag to give you time to find a source and add it for what it is worth. ~~ GB fan ~~ talk 22:23, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
GBfan (presumably Green Bay) wrote: "The information you have added is not sourced at all. To stay in the article there needs to be a reliable source to verify the information... [removed opinion text below] ...I have added a fact tag to give you time to find a source and add it for what it is worth." - Excellent, and good editing form. I say that because of your "FWIW" note prompts me to comment. Yours is the correct editorial approach, and indeed that's what those inline tags are for. Instead of just simply reverting something just because you "do not believe the information will stand" because, according to you "it is to subjective" you are giving me a chance to look for a source and add it to give the writing a sense of verifiability, or at least attribution to the points expressed, rather than make editing into an adversarial matter (as it so often seems to be) —even though there is a possibility, as you claim, that "every source you find that agrees with your POV" and "someone else can find a source that disagrees with it." I can't think its as controversial as you say it is, but again I appreciate the time and the non-adversarial approach. Regards, -Stevertigo (w | t | e) 00:29, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

PS: Sources added: The person who removed the text previously consulted a dictionary. I likewise have consulted one. -Stevertigo (w | t | e) 01:16, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

First of all, Wiktionary is not a reliable source (see WP:IRS#Self-published and questionable sources). Secondly, this article is about the taxonomical kingdom Animalia, not about the word "animal" (see WP:NAD). Gabbe (talk) 07:58, 15 May 2010 (UTC)
I agree that the material should be removed. I have looked for reliable sources that discuss this but have not been able to find any. Dictionary definitions only indicate that the word has different meanings, they do not verify anything else in the entry. At this point I would suggest leaving it out of the article, and continuing the discussion here until/if a consensus is reached to insert it into the article. ~~ GB fan ~~ talk 15:42, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Here is the last version removed from the article.

While scientific classification is inclusive in classifying humans as part of Animalia or the "animal kingdom," [1] humans are not "animals" in the common sense of the word: the term "animal" is commonly used to exclusively distinguish non-human creatures from humans [2] —similar to the word "beasts." The adjectives "higher" and "lower" [animals] are sometimes used to refer to a qualitative distinction between animals with properties of mind similar to those of humans, from those which lack such faculties.
  1. ^ Wiktionary:"Animal" [1] "1. In scientific usage, animals are [organisms with mobile, active cells] (distinguishing it from plants and fungi) and [those which get energy from other organisms] (distinguishing it from plants)."
  2. ^ Wiktionary:"Animal" [2] def. "2. In non-scientific usage, any member of the kingdom Animalia other than a human being."

~~ GB fan ~~ talk 15:46, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

"Animals living close to hydrothermal vents and cold seeps on the ocean floor are not dependent on the energy of sunlight. Instead chemosynthetic archaea and bacteria form the base of the food chain." True, but they do depend on the Sun for the nuclear fusion which created the elements that are the reactants in their chemosynthesis. (This fusion energy also gives rise to sunlight.) Grassynoel (talk) 07:43, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
Not according to the most widely accepted theories of the origin of the solar system. The Sun and the planets are generally believed to have formed at more or less the same time. All "heavier" elements (i.e. other than Hydrogen and Helium) were formed by fusion in earlier generations of stars. Thus, chemotrophs are dependent on energy from stellar nuclear fusion, but not from the Sun. FredV (talk) 15:44, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
You're right, I confused the Sun with the proto-Solar System which contained heavy elements from earlier stars. Grassynoel (talk) 01:22, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Wording query

In section Porifera, Radiata and basal Bilateria, should the phrase "at least among those 21 phyla" read "at least among those 21 taxa" (or "... genera")? (I'm not making this edit in case I've overlooked something). --Stfg (talk) 13:54, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

As no comment for over a week, I've changed it to "generaa". Hope OK. --Stfg (talk) 15:54, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
I propose changing this back as soon as possible. The study cited is clearly trying to determine the relationship between phylum-level groups of Metazoans. The differences between different genera would not be very detectable at this level, and in any case the distinctions between phlya are much more important in such a broad discussion of animal differentaion. Genus is such a low-level distinction that it is fairly meaningless to pick 21 genera specifically as opposed to the depth implied by 21 phyla. I fully endorse changing this back very soon, as I believe the previous wording is much more correct according to the reference. Dhicks3 (talk) 03:50, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
The Nature article says 29 genera in 21 phyla.μηδείς (talk) 04:44, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Random Article

I think would be nice if Wikipedia expanded its Random Article feature so that you could search for random articles within subsections of Wikipedia, instead of the whole of Wikipedia. Animals are an excellent example. What if you could ask Wikipedia for random animal article? Or more specific things, what if you could look at a random article inside a particular kingdom or phylum. For example, "Random Echinoderm." It doesn't even have to be just animals, although they are a good example. For example, what-if you could ask Wikipedia for a random article on ancient Egyptian history? What do you think? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.224.38.246 (talk) 20:50, 1 December 2010 (UTC)


Multi-cellular ?

The introduction says that animals are *mostly* multicellular, but in the Groups of Animals section, there is not unicellular organism :( —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.27.77.87 (talk) 17:29, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

No answer, so I'm removing "mostly" from the introduction. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.238.211.94 (talk) 09:56, 27 December 2010 (UTC) Stefan Udrea (talk) 09:59, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

This is reasonable. Traditionally, biology texts have talked of "single cell animals", and a taxon "Protozoa" has often been used, usually positioned as a Phylum under the Kingdom "Animalia". However, the Protozoa - typically defined as single cell heterotrophic eukaryotic organisms - are a diverse paraphyletic group with no comfortable place in modern systems of biological classification. Classification of single cell eukaryotes ("protists") is in a state of flux and contention, so it is probably wise to remove "Animals" from this battlefield. FredV (talk) 16:03, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Souls

"Etymology" in the article suggests that the word derives from the Latin adjective animalis, "with a soul". This is broadly correct (albeit the route into English was a roundabout one), but in this case "soul" seems to be used in its figurative sense; the literal meaning, "breath of life" (life force), seems more appropriate. The adjective is derived from the noun anima, "breeze" or "breath". I'm suggesting this minor change, with a cite from The Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins ISBN 9780199547937.--Old Moonraker (talk) 08:21, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it should be clarified that breath is the earliest meaning (the stem *an- 'breath' is so old it is even found in distant relatives of Indo-European such as proto-Eskimo) and there should be refernce made to Aristotle's theory of the three-part soul.μηδείς (talk) 15:52, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
OK, no objections: done. It's true that Aristotle regarded animals as possessing "sentient souls", as opposed to the "intellectual" soul of humans, but as it doesn't appear in the immediate etymology I'm skipping this for now. --Old Moonraker (talk) 13:22, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Problem with main picture

While I do think it's a great idea that you give pictures of the wide variety of organisms that can be classified as "animals" I don't recognize over half of those animals pictured there. Is there anyway that you can provide a key or a caption that gives the name of each animal? The same sort of thing is done for articles on cities or countries where a variety of photos are in the main picture and each told a caption for what the photo is. quixoto (talk) 09:17, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

If you click on the picture, it will take you to the image file description article. The "description" section contains a composite array breakdown of the image. By clicking on a sub-image here, you will link to the image file for that image, which contains an (often very brief) description, frequently including further links. FredV (talk) 09:31, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Error in Dunkleosteus image caption

Th caption on the right hand side of the page under a rendering of Dunkleosteus, incorrectly reads: "Dunkleosteus was a gigantic, 10-foot-long (3.0 m) prehistoric fish.[39]"

Either this is not true, or the Wikipedia page for Dunkleosteus is incorrect, stating: "...measured 10 meters, which is about 33 feet."

This should be corrected.

Orphankill (talk) 00:19, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Fixed. Thank you for reporting this. -- Donald Albury 10:42, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Where do animals come from?

NYT: From Single Cells, a Vast Kingdom Arose by Carl Zimmer. Overview with links to a lot of papers. walk victor falk talk 10:17, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Animal Synonymous with Metazoa?

Is Animalia synonymous with Metazoa? I believe it may only refer to Animals with differentiated tissues (i.e. discluding sponges). I may be incorrect so I have not changed it yet.Ollyoxenfree (talk) 17:58, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

In every formulation I've seen, sponges of various clades are all included in Metazoa. Some authors group them with placozoans into Parazoa, but that doesn't look like it's going to hold. --Danger (talk) 18:31, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
The animals with true tissues are placed in the EUmetazoa ('proper animals'), implying that there is some larger, more inclusive group of less similar Metazoa containing it. This contains the sponges. 128.61.115.128 (talk) 20:40, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Animalia and Metazoa needs to be defined better. Etymology needs expansion. --J. D. Redding 01:12, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Under "Structure" it says, "With a few exceptions, most notably the sponges (Phylum Porifera) and Placozoa, animals have bodies differentiated into separate tissues."
What are the other exceptions implied here? I can't find any others except Porifera and Placozoa. 180.1.164.47 (talk) 10:23, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps it could be better worded to indicate that sponges and placozoans are the only known extant animals to not have differentiated tissues. To say that they are the only animals with undifferentiated tissues risks embarrassment by a new discovery. -- Donald Albury 19:05, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
I agree completely. And while the discovery of a new extant undifferentiated metazoan phylum may now be relatively unlikely, advances in micropaeleontology are quite likely to reveal such new, now extinct, phyla early in the evolution of metazoans. FredV (talk) 08:07, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
I agree with both points above and would like to change the wording along your lines of thought. My only nitpick is that "only known extant animals" implies that there are known extinct animals. We could word it, "only known animals". Or if we wish to imply that other phlya may be found, we could say something along the lines of "only currently known animals".
Perhaps something like, "Animals have bodies differentiated into separate tissues, with the only currently known exceptions being the sponges (Phylum Porifera) and Placozoa."114.181.142.66 (talk) 07:03, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
On further thought, I don't think we need to emphasize a possible event of unknown odds, i.e., the discovery of another undifferentiated phylum. A minimal edit would give us, "Except for sponges (Phylum Porifera) and Placozoa, animals have bodies differentiated into separate tissues." While I like to be precise in my writing, conciseness is also a virture in Wikipedia. -- Donald Albury 09:57, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

"AnimalsRelativeNumbers.png" graphic

In the "AnimalsRelativeNumbers.png" graphic, there are 12 colored sections on the pie chart, but there are only 11 items listed in the legend. These 11 listed items appear to correspond to the first 11 sections of the pie chart, in clockwise order starting at 12 o'clock. The large blue section (75% of the total) does not appear to be labeled. I am confused - should the legend include a 12th item, and if so, what is it? If not, then shouldn't the 11 listed items take up 100% of the pie chart, not merely 25%? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mister Sharkey (talk • contribs) 19:56, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Welp, I finally got around to fixing the shading in this image. Should be clearer now. mgiganteus1 (talk) 20:53, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

insult

Under portrait of Carl Linnaeus is wrote: Carl Linnaeus, an animal himself, is known as the father of modern taxonomy. Anybody who has permission to edit the article, please remove the insult.Inloopas (talk) 17:27, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

 Done. Deli nk (talk) 18:26, 24 July 2017 (UTC)
(However, we are all animals, and pointing out that Linnaeus is an animal need not be regarded as an "insult". --Epipelagic (talk) 20:20, 24 July 2017 (UTC))

Homologous

please change ((homologous)) to ((Homology (biology)|homologous)) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:541:4304:e6b0:218:8bff:fe74:fe4f (talk) 17:40, 30 August 2017‎ (UTC)

Done. Favonian (talk) 17:51, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

Time to make this a Good Article?

This mature article is now comprehensive and thoroughly cited. Would anyone care to join me in shepherding it through GAN? Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:46, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

I have little time in this period for thorough editing but if there is some quick task, I can give a little hand.--cyclopiaspeak! 13:59, 25 February 2018 (UTC)
I was thinking of just nominating it, any tasks would be proposed by the reviewer. If you'd like to co-nominate, that'd be great. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:56, 25 February 2018 (UTC)
Aaah. I thought there would be a roadmap of work to do before that. I'm not at all familiar with GAN. Okay.--cyclopiaspeak! 16:34, 25 February 2018 (UTC)
It's nothing to worry about. There are however a few statements in the article which remain uncited, so if you wanted a small task ... Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:49, 25 February 2018 (UTC)
Nice idea. I'll try. --cyclopiaspeak! 18:31, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

We have collectively cleaned up the article, illustrated, cited, tabulated, organised, formatted and punctuated until it shines like a treasured Jacobean oak dresser. I propose to nominate it at GAN now, and will be happy for anyone who wants to join me to be co-noms. Speak now ... Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:59, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Oops I missed this. I added myself! (I'll just assume Jacobean oak dressers are really shiny.) Rhinopias (talk) 00:59, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
Excellent! And yes, gleaming. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:41, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
Beat me to it both times, Chiswick Chap. Sorry if I inadvertently introduced any "-ize"s! Rhinopias (talk) 23:37, 11 March 2018 (UTC)
Many thanks for your help, which was appreciated. Great that we made it. Chiswick Chap (talk) 02:09, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Copy edit proposal

Under the ecology section, I think the spelling should be changed to categorized and that the sentences should be split into two ending before the list. Caitlin.oco (talk) 03:29, 16 October 2018 (UTC)Caitlin.oco

The article uses British spellings, including "metre" and "categorised". Dyanega (talk) 04:01, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

"สัตว์" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect สัตว์. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. signed, Rosguill talk 05:30, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

"Water animal" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Water animal. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 May 23#Water animal until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. TheAwesomeHwyh 02:51, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

References

Semi-protected edit request on 22 July 2020

Add a link to the disambiguation for "Animal" and "Animals" (especially because Animals redirects here). 2003:D4:719:B400:7C7C:EDFF:FEFB:8904 (talk) 09:59, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

 Done – Thjarkur (talk) 10:10, 22 July 2020 (UTC)
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