Terrestrial animal
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Animal environments are classified as either aquatic (water), terrestrial (land), or amphibious (water and land). Terrestrial animals are animals that live predominantly or entirely on land, as compared with aquatic animals, which live predominantly or entirely in the water (e.g., fish), or amphibians, which rely on a combination of aquatic and terrestrial habitats (e.g.,frogs). Terrestrial animals evolved from marine animals (aquatic animals living in the ocean) somewhere between 600 and 400 million years ago.
Some terrestrial animals are partly arboreal (tree-dwelling). Terrestrial locomotion in animals is typically, although by no means exclusively, on legs.
[edit] Examples of terrestrial animals
There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of examples of terrestrial animals, although the exact number remains a point of contention among biologists. The overwhelming majority of these animals are insects, with close to a million described species. More familiar to many people, although much fewer in number of species, are large terrestrial mammals, both domestic and wild, such as deer, antelope, bison, cats, cows, horses, pigs, etc. There are also numerous other taxa of terrestrial animals, including some birds, reptiles, and arachnids.
[edit] Animals using mixed habitats
Amphibious and amphibiotic animals, like frogs (the order Anura), while they do require land, are separated into their own environmental classification. The majority of amphibians (class Amphibia) have an aquatic larval stage, like a tadpole, but then live as terrestrial adults, and may return to the water to mate.
