Talk:Animal

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Contents

[edit] Classification of Animalia (a possible one)

[edit] 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)

[edit] Why does the blue octopus photo show a red octopus?

I thought it was blue/yellow or red/green colourblindness. :)

Octopuses can change their colour. Gdr 11:48, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 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)

[edit] Rhombozoa appear twice in classification

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] Added External Link

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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

  • Who keeps putting Agnotozoa back under the taxobox? It's archaic. I'm going to remove it again. Werothegreat 20:30, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] SIZE ERRORS REMAIN

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


[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)


[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

Who said they were —Preceding unsigned comment added by 143.226.26.86 (talk) 20:29, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] "The word "animal" comes from the Latin word animal"

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)

[edit] 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 superfluou


what's this abbout lol

[edit] 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)

[edit] "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)

the ultimate resoure of this is s.sanjay kumar son of p.k.shivakumar —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.193.161.96 (talk) 09:44, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

animals are great —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.175.3.64 (talk) 04:32, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Picture of Human

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

[edit] 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.

[edit] Animals

They lay eggs and other things. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.88.82.216 (talk) 07:03, 9 April 2008 (UTC) animal have teeth

Most of them do. WadeSimMiser (talk) 23:45, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I WUT TO GIT LON IN —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.153.175.196 (talk) 02:24, 1 May 2008 (UTC)