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🦁 Animal world πŸ”Ž Meet the animals

Animals

Animal life is endlessly varied: animals range from complex creatures like the great apes and gibbons to tiny parasites like flatworms. Some animals, like the Arctic tern, migrate huge distances every year, while others, like the plant-like sea fan, spend most of their lives fixed to the ocean floor.
Animal life is endlessly varied: animals range from complex creatures like the great apes and gibbons to tiny parasites like flatworms. Some animals, like the Arctic tern, migrate huge distances every year, while others, like the plant-like sea fan, spend most of their lives fixed to the ocean floor.

πŸ“– In short

Animals are living things found everywhere on Earth: in forests, deserts, seas and even inside our homes. Some walk, some crawl, some fly and some swim. Horses, sparrows, fish, butterflies and worms are all animals, and so are sponges and oysters!

🀩 Did you know?

  • Scientists know more than a million kinds of animals, most of them insects.
  • The biggest animal that has ever lived on Earth is the blue whale.
  • In India the number of tigers doubled after a protection project began in 1973.
  • Some animals are so small we can only see them with a microscope.

πŸ”Ž Find out more

🌟 How do we know it's an animal?

Animals are different from plants because they don't make their own food: they eat plants or other animals. And most animals can move from place to place.

πŸ” Vertebrates and invertebrates

Vertebrate animals have a backbone inside their bodies, like fish, birds, reptiles, amphibians and mammals. Invertebrates have no backbone, like insects, worms and spiders, and there are far more of them.

πŸ’‘ Plant-eaters and meat-eaters

Some animals eat only plants, like cows and rabbits; some eat meat, like lions and wolves; and some eat both, like bears and people.

🎯 Animals and people

People raise many animals that give them milk, wool, meat and eggs, or help them with their work: donkeys have carried heavy loads for thousands of years. And we must protect wild animals from dying out.

πŸ“Έ More pictures

The huge blue whale is much bigger than the elephant, the largest land animal, or the giraffe, the tallest animal of all.
The huge blue whale is much bigger than the elephant, the largest land animal, or the giraffe, the tallest animal of all.
Animals live from a few hours to many years: an adult mayfly lives just a few hours, while a tortoise can live 100 years.
Animals live from a few hours to many years: an adult mayfly lives just a few hours, while a tortoise can live 100 years.
The topaz hummingbird
The topaz hummingbird

🧩 Test yourself

1 Which of these animals has no backbone?

2 What does a rabbit eat?

3 Which picture shows β€œAnimals”?

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