What is the Study of the animal kingdom and the classification of animals and animal habits and the location of animals?

Answer 1

Q. What is the Study of the animal kingdom ?Zoologyis the study of animals and involves research in many aspects of animal life such as behavior, diet, evolution, classification, and distribution.

Q. The classification of animals.

Animal Kingdom can be split up into main groups, vertebrates (with a backbone) and invertebrates (without a backbone). When you think of an animal, you usually think of something like a cat, a dog, a mouse, or a tiger.

All told, around 800,000 species have been identified in the Animal Kingdom -- most of them in the Arthropod phylum.

In fact, some scientists believe that if we were to identify all species in the tropical rain forests the ranks of Arthropoda would swell to over 10 million species! Most people do not normally think of a clam, a jellyfish, or an earthworm as an animal.

Yet all of them belong to the kingdom of animals. The science of classifying organisms is called taxonomy.

In order to study living things, scientists classify each organism according to its:

Kingdom

Phylum

Class

Order

Family

Genus

Species

Usually, a species is called by its genus name (capitalized) followed by its species name (lower case), so a human being is called Homo sapiens. In Latin that means "wise man."

To date there are five kingdoms: Animalia, which is made up of animals; Plantae, which is made up of plants; Protista, which is made up of protists (single-celled creatures invisible to the human eye); Fungi, which is made up of mushrooms, mold, yeast, lichen, etc; and Monera, which is made up of the three types of bacteria.

The next category is the Phylum. There are several phyla within each kingdom. The phyla start to break the animals (or plants, fungi, etc) into smaller and more recognizable groups. The best known phylum is Chordata, which contains all animals with backbones (fish, birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians). There is also Arthropoda (insects, Spiders, crustaceans); Mollusca (snails, squid, clam); Annelida (segmented worms); Echinodermata (starfish, sea urchins) and many, many more.

The next category that makes up the phyla is the Class. The class breaks up animals into even more familiar groups. For example, the phylum Chordata is broken down into several classes, including Aves (birds), Reptilia (reptiles), Amphibia (amphibians), Mammalia (mammals) and several others.

The next category is the Order. Each class is made up of one or more orders. Mammalia can be broken down into Rodentia (mice, rats), Primates (Old- and New-World monkeys), Chiroptera (bats), Insectivora (shrews, moles), Carnivora (dogs, cats, weasels), Perissodactyla (horses, zebras), Artiodactyla (cows), Proboscidea (elephants) and many more.

Orders can then be broken down into Families. The order Carnivora can be broken down into Canidae (dogs), Felidae (cats), Ursidae (bears), Hyaenidae (hyaenas, aardwolves), Mustelidae (weasels, wolverines), and many more.

The next category is the Genus. The family Felidae, for example, can be broken down into Acinonyx (cheetah), Panthera (lion, tiger), Neofelis (clouded leopard) and Felis (domestic cats).

Finally, the genus is broken down into the Species. The genus Panthera can be broken down to include Panthera Leo (lion) and Panthera Tigris (tiger). Note that the genus is placed in front of the species.

Main group of Invertebrates are :

The largest and most commonly studied phyla of animals are:

1. Porifera (sponges)
2. Cnidaria (jellyfish, hydras, sea anemones, Portuguese man-of-wars, and corals)
3. Platyhelminthes (flatworms, including planaria, flukes, and tapeworms)
4. Nematoda (roundworms, including rotifers and nematodes)
5. Mollusca (mollusks, including bivalves, snails and slugs, and octopuses and squids)
6. Annelida (segmented worms, including earthworms, leeches, and marine worms)
7. Echinodermata (including sea stars, sea cucumbers, sand dollars, and sea urchins)
8. Arthropods (including arachnids, crustaceans, millipedes, centipedes, and insects)
9. Chordata (animals with nerve chords - this group includes the vertebrates)

KINGDOM NR.OF SPECIES

Bacteria.............................................. 4,000

Protoctists (algae, protozoa, etc)......... 80,000

Animals, vertebrates........................... 52,000

Animals, invertebrates.................... 1,272,000

Fungi................................................. 72,000

Plants.............................................. 270,000

Total number of described species... 1,750,000

Possible nr. with unknown species: 14,000,000

from the United Nations publication: UNEP-WCMC (2000). Global Biodiversity: Earth's living resources in the 21st century. Cambridge, World Conservation Press.

The Animal Kingdom is at once the Kingdom most and least familiar to us. Almost all of the animals we commonly think of -- mammals, fish, and birds -- belong to a single subgroup within one of the 33 Phyla comprising the Animal Kingdom. On the other hand, over 100,000 species in some 25 animal phyla -- mostly small worms -- are so unfamiliar that they are virtually unknown to non-scientists. The same goes for several hundred thousand tiny insect-like species populating the Arthropoda phylum.

Animal Classification

Scientists who study living things are called biologists. Biologists classify living things into two kingdoms, the Plant Kingdom and the Animal Kingdom. The study of plants is called botany. Scientists who study plants are called botanists. The study of animals is called zoology. Scientists who study zoology are called zoologists. Zoologists study thousands of different kinds of animals

Q. animal habits.

There are 3 main eating habits of all animals. Animals that eat only plants, grass, leaves etc. are called "herbivorous animals". Examples of these would be cows, horses, goats etc in the domestic scene and deer, zebras, girraffes etc in the wild.

Animals that eat only other animals are called "carnivorous animals". Examples of these would be lions, tigers, snakes etc. You won't find many tamed carnivorous animals buts cats & dogs prefer to eat meat rather than leaves.

That leads us to the group of animals that like to eat both plants and animals. Infact some of them like the rat, can eat almost anything. This group of animals are called "omnivorous animals". Most humans are omnivorous, though there are some who will eat only plant life and avoid eating even eggs, fish and milk because of religious or ethnic reasons. Some have made personal choices to eat only vegetarian food because they understand that the human body is best suited for vegetarian food and finds it comparatively difficult to digest meat.

Q. Animal's Habitats.

Animals live everywhere on earth--in every kind of terrain and every kind of climate. An animal's living place is called its habitat. Most animals are only adapted to live in one or two habitats. A baracuda which is a salt water fish could not live in a fresh water lake. A walrus could not live in a desert. A rattlesnake could not live for very long in the arctic. Some animals migrate in the spring and again in the fall to find warmer habitats with an abundance of food.

Match the animals below to their normal habitats. Fold a plain piece of paper in half. Fold it in half again. Fold it in half 2 more times. When you unfold it, you should have 16 squares on your paper. Write each of these 16 habitats at the top of the squares. Under each habitat, fill in the animal that lives in that particular habitat. Some animals will belong in more than one habitat.

The habitats are:

1. Polar/arctic areas
2. Mountains
3. Oceans
4. Deserts
5. Savannah/grasslands/prairies
6. Tropical rainforest
7. Woodland/forest
8. Tundra
9. Taiga
10. Wetland areas/marshes
11. Pond
12. Rivers/lakes
13. Coral reef
14. Deciduous forest
15. Tide pool
16. Cave

Q. the location of animals?

A first step to understanding individual animals, and in turn populations of animals, is to understand the relationship they have with their environment. The environment in which an animal lives is referred to as its habitat. A habitat includes both biotic (living) and abiotic (non-living) compents of the animals environment. Abiotic components of an animal's environment include a huge range of characteristics, examples of which are:

• temperature
• humidity
• oxygen
• wind
• soil composition
• day length
• elevation

Biotic components of an animal's environment include such things as:

• plant matter
• predators
• parasites
• competitors
• individuals of the same species

Animals require energy to support the processes of life: movement, foraging, digestion, reproduction, growth, work. Organisms can be categorized into one of the following groups:

• autotroph - an organism that obtains energy from sunlight (in the case of green plants) or inorganic compounds (in the case of sulfur bacteria)
• heterotroph - an organism that use organic materials as a source of energy

Animals are heterotrophs, obtaining their energy from the ingestion of other organisms. When resources are scarce or environmental conditions limit the ability of animals to obtain food or go about their normal activies, animals' metabolic activity may decrease to conserve energy until better conditions prevail. The different types of metabolic dormancy or responses include:

• torpor - a time of decreased metabolism and reduced body temperature in daily activity cycles
• hibernation - a time of decreased metabolism and reduced body temperature that may last weeks or months
• winter sleep - periods of inactivity during which body temperature does not fall substantially and from which animals can be awakened and become active quickly
• aestivation - a period of inactivity in animals that must sustain extended periods of drying

Environmental characteristics (temperature, moisture, food availability, and so on) vary over time and location and animals are adapated to certain range of values for each characteristic. The range of an environmental characteristic to which an animal is adapted is called its tolerance range for that characteristic. Within an animal's tolerance range is an optimal range of values at which the animal is most successful. Sometimes, in response to prolonged change in environmental characteristic, animals' physiology adjusts to accomodate the change in its environment, and in doing so, its tolerance range shifts. This shift in tolerance range that the animal experiences in response to an changed environment, is called acclimation.

Answer 2

The study of the animal kingdom is called zoology and it involves the classification, behavior, habitat, and physiology of animals. It aims to understand the diversity of animal species, their evolution, and interactions with their environment. This field helps us to better appreciate and conserve the biodiversity of the planet.