Chapter #10: The Kingdom Animalia
Theory & Question Answers
Section III – Biodiversity
THE KINGDOM ANIMALIA
It includes all eukaryotic, non-chlorophyllous multicellular, ingestive heterotrophs with no cell wall.
A true animal now defined as “a eukaryotic, multicellular, ingestive heterotrophic organism which are diploid and developed from an embryo formed by the fusion of two different haploid gametes, a large egg, and a smaller sperm”. Animals range in size and complexity from a merely microscopic parazoan Trichoplax to the giant blue whale Balaenopters that reaches a length of nearly 40 meters and weight more than 160,000 kilograms.
The kingdom Animalia is divided into 33 groups called phyla. The major phyla are Porifera, Cnidaria, Platyhelminthes, Nemathelminthes, Annelida, Mollusca, Arthropoda, Echinodermata, and Chordata.
