Eli5: What differentiates animals from other living things?
In: Biology
“Animal” is one specific type of organism. All animals share certain biological characteristics, which no other kinds of creatures have.
The two main other options are called “fungi” and “plants.” Plants do photosynthesis, and have “cell walls” made of cellulose. Animals don’t have cell walls, but they do have other things that plants don’t. Fungi also have cell walls, but theirs are made differently using a different material, chitin.
There are also other kinds of organism, but most of them are single-celled beings. Scientists don’t entirely agree on how these should be split up. One common classification says there are three additional kinds of living things: “bacteria,” “archaea” (ancient and very primitive cousins of “true” bacteria), and “protists” (things like amoebas, but also kelp). In most cases, these kinds of organism don’t really matter for ordinary people, except in how they can contaminate water or food, which is why it is very important to only drink clean water and to always cook meat thoroughly.
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