Talk:Animal
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animal/amimalia
Very little of what's on that page [i.e., Animalia] is taxonomy - it's mostly an overview of the group, a discussion of what distinguishes them, and some notes about their origin. I know it's a little technical but that's mainly because I wrote it in excitement over finding out what unites sponges and metazoa; I'm not sure what the purpose of dividing pages like this would be.
"Animal" is quite obviously a natural topic for biology! You might want to say something on the page called "animal," in less technical terms, and otherwise point to the Animalia page. Similarly, Wikipedia is not going to go through life never having a plant page (Yes, it now has one). There is no good reason to use the Latin words exclusively, is there? If only to avoid redundancy, well, of course you can avoid redundancy by monitoring what is put on the animal page and what is on the animalia page. Maybe, you'll simply want the animal page point to animalia. --LMS
I think the last is probably the best. Or maybe animalia should point to animal, I'm having a tought time figuring that out. See talk:Linnaean taxonomy...also note that a flat list of animals like this is going to die hard if more people ever take an interest in them.
suggestion from LMS
I suggest that the biologists develop biology articles in whatever format they find most simpatico, and after that we can construct a page in ordinary English that points to the Latin pages. (You might want to state your intentions on Animal in order to make this unconfusing to the casual reader.) --LMS
animal in the sense of mammel?
I don't think animal is ever meant in the sense of mammal. Certainly when people give examples of animals, they choose them from that order, but that is no different than aleph not coming to mind when you give an example of a letter. Certainly whenever non-mammals are at all considered the word animal is assumed to include them - for instance, fish and animals is a construction which is just plain wrong.
This same sort of trouble seems to me to come up on Fish, too - the word is often used for things like jellyfish and shellfish, but if it ever came down to the question "are these fish?" the answer would be a definite no.
- Whilst I'd disagree with the exact wording of the entry, I'd also disagree with your statement. Most people would consider it, in the common sense of the word, to include fish, birds and reptiles, they'd probably not include insects quite so readily. Dave McKee
animal/animalia again
Why in the world is there separate articles for animal and animalia? Following wikipedia naming conventions there should be just one article named animal with the Latin term redirecting there. Any difference in useage would be an interesting thing to discuss in the article itself. --maveric149
Naming conventions aren't set in stone, mav. ;-) From the above discussion, animal is intended for general information, while animalia is reserved for more technical information. --Stephen Gilbert
Well there isn't much here anyway and both of the articles are about the same thing, so I am going to perform a merge of content. No need to have duplication of effort. This type of needless duplication has already been discussed elsewhere. --maveric149
I don't see any duplication of effort, and the articles aren't about the same thing. The animalia page is dense, full of technical information that the average person isn't looking for when they look up animal. Animalia is about scientific classification; animal is for general information. --Stephen Gilbert
- As I have stated in other places, I'm not a fan of splitting content along lines of common vs. scientific usage -- even though I am a biologist. A good encyclopedia article on animals would not be so technical as to not be accessible to non-scientists. Using the Latin name only encourages technically-inclined people to write for, what much of the public at large (esp. in the US) views as the "scientific priesthood" by using technical jargon (no wonder much of the general public feels this way -- also no wonder why the vast majority of them are scientifically illiterate). The difference in usage alone would make for an interesting paragraph (see Jellyfish discussion about the the Portuguese man-of-war). However, in most contexts the two terms are near perfect synonyms. If animalia is too technical, then it needs to be copyedited for that (maybe moving more technical discussions to sub-articles). --maveric149
Well, I'm not convinced about the merger, but you seem to feel more strongly about than I, and you're a biologist, so I'm not going to undo it or anything. However, I do encourage you to keep working on the article and spin the more detailed stuff into sub-headings and/or sub-articles. --Stephen Gilbert
- I will do my best as time permits. --maveric149
non mammel examples
I'd like to toss a few non-mammals onto the list of animals-by-common-names at the end of the article. Nothing too obscure: maybe bee, shark, parrot or the like. Vicki Rosenzweig
- By all means, please do! --maveric149
- Done
Graeme Base's Animalia
Moved from article: "There is also an article titled Graeme Base's Animalia." (I've moved this because, if there is, the link is broken) Vicki Rosenzweig, Monday, July 15, 2002
list content dispute
A list of animals is nice, but this one, saying the animals are "well-known" adds nothing to the article. I had never even heard of an angula, and I wouldn't rank buffalo, elk, lynx and salamander in there as well.
What would be useful would be some examples of well-known animals from each of the subkingdoms or ven the phyla. We could also have a List of animals article, if that's necessary. Jeronimo
taxobox
The chart on the right side of the page needs content and HTML-coding work. --Dante Alighieri
nervous system?
I don't know enough about phylogeny and what makes animals animals to really argue hard for the addition I suggested and tweaked in response to criticism:
"An early adaptation and distinguishing feature of animals, with the exception of sponges and Placozoa, is the nervous system."
It just seems to me a small token to the common sense of "animal," which would be very satisfying to the reader who comes to this article with only that common sense of it, and which to naive me has merit even just as an assertion about phylogeny/evolution, which not to mention is accurate. The remark about muscle and nerve below as incidental to cell differentiation to me calls little attention to these things and to me doesn't make my sentence redundant (although I didn't notice it at first). 168... 17:58 Feb 16, 2003 (UTC)]
Ok. I simply didn't think it belonged at the top, because treating metazoan characteristics as if they were the normal for all animals, while standard, really obscures why things like sponges belong in the group. I've tried blocking off the metazoa, and making the nervous system a little more prominent there, as a compromise.
locomotion?
What animals are incapable of locomotion? Not sponges, at least, according to my recent Web surfing. 168... 04:05, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)
If locomotion has anything to do with moving from one location to another, than any of the various animals that live attached to some substratum, sponges included. If locomotion simply means rearranging some cells or wiggling some extremity, possibly none, but by those standards most plants are capable of locomotion as well.
O.K. That sounds like an excellent point. Maybe those scientists touting their discovery of sponge movements were just grasping for some undeserved limelight by calling it locomotion. I haven't read the studies and didn't realize (assuming it's true) that sponges spend their entire adult lives anchored to one spot. Anyway, I guess I know anenomes and corals do, and if I'd just remembered I wouldn't have neglected to qualify "locomotion" as a less than universal characteristic of animals. I'm glad you agree that its sub-universality doesn't make it unimportant to the concept of animals. 168... 05:18, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)
caps in list
At the list of animals, some were capped, and others weren't (most weren't). So I uncapped all of them. ("Human" was capped...seemed possibly anthropomorphic...j/k, sort of...) Unless capping these terms is some convention in biology, of course. Revolver 08:21, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)
On humans not being animals
User 142.151.177.134, please stop repeatedly changing the article to insert your point of view that humans are not animals. That you have tried it at least seven times, and each time your changes are quickly removed (by different people, too) should indicate that the Wikipedia community does not agree with your unusual point of view. Granted, the people I know are not necessarily representative, but I do not believe I have ever met someone who does not consider human beings to be animals. Also, I feel I must point out that the reason you give for these changes, heresy (defined by Merriam-Webster (http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=heresy&x=0&y=0) to be "adherence to a religious opinion contrary to church dogma"), is not ground for removing or changing information. In fact, this clearly indicates a non-neutral point of view, as saying one is removing heretical material is tantamount to saying one is removing it because it does not conform to church beliefs, or specific point of view. Furthermore, much of the information in Wikipedia was once considered heresy (that the Earth is approximately spherical, that it revolves around the sun, that the laws of physics apply both to the heavens and to the Earth, and so on).
If even after reading this and carefully considering your own viewpoints you still very strongly about this, please discuss it here. As you can see, if you just make these sorts of changes without discussion or agreement, they will be reversed every time. I believe the article already represents the "nonhuman animal" category adequately when it mentions that colloquially people may use the term to mean nonhuman animals. Finally, I would like to point out Merriam-Webster's definition (http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=+animal&x=0&y=0) of animal. The primary (1) definition is "any of a kingdom (Animalia) of living things including many-celled organisms and often many of the single-celled ones (as protozoans) that typically differ from plants in having cells without cellulose walls, in lacking chlorophyll and the capacity for photosynthesis, in requiring more complex food materials (as proteins), in being organized to a greater degree of complexity, and in having the capacity for spontaneous movement and rapid motor responses to stimulation," which of course is how the article treats it. The secondary (2a) definition listed is "one of the lower animals as distinguished from human", which is also mentioned in the article, and indeed the definition itself uses the word "animal" with the meaning given in its primary definition. (The remainder of the definitions, which you are free to peruse, are not relevant to this discussion.) — [[User:Knowledge Seeker|Knowledge Seeker দ (talk)]] 21:17, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Suggest 8 possible wiki links and 40 possible backlinks for Animal.
An automated Wikipedia link suggester has some possible wiki link suggestions for the Animal article:
- Can link pre-existence: ... carbohydrate and proteid; it is dependent, in fact, on the pre-existence of these organic substances, themselves the products of liv...
- Can link fade out: ...in which the primary differences between animals and plants fade out....
- Can link multicellular organisms: ...d usually a [[mesoderm]] between them. In contrast, other multicellular organisms such as [[plant]]s and [[fungus|fungi]] usually have cells ... (link to section)
- Can link adaptive radiation: ...ambrian]] period, about 570 million years ago; this massive adaptive radiation is called the [[Cambrian Explosion]].... (link to section)
- Can link new kingdom: ...ally unrelated and often as similar to plants as animals, a new kingdom, the [[Protist]]a, was devised to hold them.... (link to section)
- Can link digestive tract: ...called the [[Protostomia]]. These phyla all have a complete digestive tract (including a [[mouth]] and an [[anus]]), with the mouth dev... (link to section)
- Can link extinct animal: ...Chordata]] (vertebrates and their kin) There are also some extinct animal phyla that, without much knowledge of their embryology or i... (link to section)
- Can link three kingdoms: ...nnaeus|Linnaeus]]' original scheme, the animals were one of three kingdoms, divided into the classes of [[Vermes]], [[Insect]]a, [[Fis... (link to section)
Additionally, there are some other articles which may be able to linked to this one (also known as "backlinks"):
- In Albinism, can backlink animal kingdom: ...rry these genes. Albinism tends to be more hazardous in the animal kingdom, where vision and pigmentation are usually strongly linked ...
- In Claudius Aelianus, can backlink animal kingdom: ... as :"an appealing collection of facts and fables about the animal kingdom that invites the reader to ponder contrasts between human a...
- In Evolutionism, can backlink animal kingdom: ...f the cotemporaneous existence of the four divisions of the animal kingdom, vertebrata, mollusca, articulata, and radiala--a fact whic...
- In Isle of Man, can backlink five kingdoms: ...of which it is possible, according to an old saying, to see five kingdoms: the kingdom of Man, that of England, that of Scotland, tha...
- In Prostitution, can backlink animal kingdom: ... to be the first time prostitution has been recorded in the animal kingdom. Trading sex for food etc. ''within'' a relationship betwee...
- In Thomas Henry Huxley, can backlink animal kingdom: ... problem of [[Appendicularian]] organism whose place in the animal kingdom [[Johannes Peter Müller]] had found himself wholly unable t...
- In Thyroid, can backlink animal kingdom: ...the regulation of [[metabolism]] and growth, throughout the animal kingdom. Among [[amphibian]]s, for example, administering a thyroid...
- In Teleological argument, can backlink animal kingdom: ...ment of a fully functioning eye has modern analogues in the animal kingdom, and each step need only develop through nothing more than ...
- In Hyderabad, India, can backlink five kingdoms: ...ynasty were founders of the Kingdom of Golconda, one of the five kingdoms that emerged after the break up of the [[Bahmani Sultanate]...
- In Where Mathematics Comes From, can backlink animal kingdom: ...r [[apes]], all [[primates]], and broader membership in the animal kingdom. Or, for that matter, robots and other entities we might ac...
- In Sick Puppy, can backlink animal kingdom: ...akfast]]. There are only few local residents. As far as the animal kingdom is concerned, the island is inhabited by innumerable tiny [...
- In Dovber of Mezeritch, can backlink animal kingdom: ...attained. Thus the vegetable kingdom serves as food for the animal kingdom, in order that the lower manifestation of divinity, existin...
- In Tree of Knowledge, can backlink animal kingdom: ...m of [[consciousness]] from the simple [[awareness]] of the animal kingdom. The human being begins to make choices that even if they i...
- In Kavango, can backlink five kingdoms: ... named after the people. Politically they are divided into five kingdoms, each headed by a hompa or fumu. Traditional law is still i...
- In Physiognomy, can backlink animal kingdom: ...The second section focuses on animal behavior, dividing the animal kingdom into male and female types. From these are deduced correspo...
- In Ecodefense, can backlink ANIMAL: ...le Modifications Water and Big Yellow Machines CHAPTER 6 ANIMAL DEFENSE...
- In Vertebrate paleontology, can backlink Kingdom Animalia: ... before us. ==Paleontological Vertebrate Classification== Kingdom Animalia...
- In Der ewige Jude, can backlink animal kingdom: ...e narration explains how just as rats are the vermin of the animal kingdom, Jews are the vermin of the human race and similarly spread...
- In Osmoregulation, can backlink animal kingdom: ...rity which always stays constant and are more common in the animal kingdom. Osmoregulators actively control salt concentrations despit...
- In Thermoregulation, can backlink animal kingdom: ...ous animals. He found that animals of the same class of the animal kingdom showed very similar temperature values, those from the Amph...
- In Thin-film optics, can backlink animal kingdom: ...icks as mentioned above, as well as in many branches of the animal kingdom. For example, the reflective and [[iridescence|iridescent]...
- In Amarula, can backlink animal kingdom: ... The Marula tree holds a position of importance both in the animal kingdom and in human legend and ritual. The trees themselves cannot...
- In Courtship, can backlink animal kingdom: ... kingdom == Courtship activities are widely observed in the animal kingdom, where they play their part in the process of [[sexual sel...
- In Early Independent Uganda, can backlink five kingdoms: ... contitution was suspended. Soon after the monarchs of the five kingdoms were stripped of their positions and forced into exile....
- In Animal communication, can backlink animal kingdom: .... They include some of the most striking structures in the animal kingdom, such as the [[peacock]]'s tail. Birdsong appears to have n...
- In Floristic province, can backlink five kingdoms: ...each subdivided into floristic provinces. Each of the other five kingdoms are subdivided directly into provinces. There is a total of...
- In Regular polytope, can backlink animal kingdom: ...ia]]]] The most famous hexagons in nature are found in the animal kingdom. The wax [[honeycomb]] made by [[bee]]s is an array of [[he...
- In Longnose gar, can backlink Kingdom Animalia: ...eth in nylon threads, or by bowfishing. Classification: Kingdom Animalia ...
- In Phelsuma references, can backlink animal kingdom: ...lass reptilia I-110. In : Griffith E. Pidgeon. E. (eds) The animal kingdom. Arranged in conformitty with its organisation by the baron...
- In Lauren Weinstein (comic strip artist), can backlink animal kingdom: ...f mystery, sexual intrigue and violent death hangs over the animal kingdom, outer space and suburban America alike. In terms of style,...
- In Isidore the Farmer, can backlink animal kingdom: ...for his goodness which he extended to both the poor and the animal kingdom. He is known to have performed many miracles in his lifetim...
- In Lauren Weinstein (comic book artist), can backlink animal kingdom: ...f mystery, sexual intrigue and violent death hangs over the animal kingdom, outer space and suburban America alike. In terms of style,...
- In Oxazepam, can backlink ANIMAL: ...ctive metabolite in man, a glucuronide excreted in urine. ANIMAL PHARMACOLOGY AND TOXICOLOGY ...
- In Melanosome, can backlink animal kingdom: ...lanin]], the commonest light-absorbing pigment found in the animal kingdom. Cells which produce melanosomes are called [[melanocyte|me...
- In Sound localization, can backlink animal kingdom: ... [[barn owl]]s are paragons of monaural localization in the animal kingdom, and have thus become [[model organism]]s....
- In Russian joke, can backlink animal kingdom: ...borrow some money, Dad?" === Animals === Jokes set in the animal kingdom also feature stereotypes, such as the violent wolf, the sne...
- In Higher evolution, can backlink animal kingdom: ...us with, the 'lower' or biological [[evolution]] within the animal kingdom up to the human level. Whereas the lower evolution is a bio...
- In Mutant X (television), can backlink animal kingdom: ... [[DNA]], giving her the strength, speed and cunning of the animal kingdom. She is a Feline Feral who has the most common feral weakne...
- In Jimmy Hibbert, can backlink ANIMAL: ... MUNGIE - Cosgrove Hall Prods (pilot eps) ANIMAL SHELF - Cosgrove Hall Films – 4 series 13 eps ea...
- In Dominion Theology, can backlink animal kingdom: ...is verse as meaning that God gave mankind dominion over the animal kingdom. Dominion theologians believe that that this verse commands...
Notes: The article text has not been changed in any way; Some of these suggestions may be wrong, some may be right.
Feedback: I like it, I hate it, Please don't link to — LinkBot 11:35, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Animals and other kingdoms
I've removed the following section:
Until the discovery of protoplasm, and the series of investigations by which it was established that the cell was a fundamental structure essentially alike in both animals and plants (see cytology), there was a vague belief that plants, if they could really be regarded as animated creatures, exhibited at the most a lower grade of life. We know now that in so far as life and living matter can be investigated by science, animals and plants cannot be described as being alive in different degrees. Animals and plants are extremely closely related organisms, alike in their fundamental characters, and each grading into organisms which possess some of the characters of both classes or kingdoms (see Protista). The actual boundaries between animals and plants are artificial; they are rather due to the ingenious analysis of the systematist than actually resident in objective nature.
The most obvious distinction is that the animal cell-wall is either absent or composed of a nitrogenous material, whereas the plant cell-wall is composed of a carbohydrate material—cellulose. The animal and the plant alike require food to repair waste, to build up new tissue and to provide material which, by chemical change, may liberate the energy which appears in the processes of life. The food is alike in both cases; it consists of water, certain inorganic salts, carbohydrate material and protein material. Both animals and plants take their water and inorganic salts directly as such. The animal cell can absorb its carbohydrate and protein food only in the form of carbohydrate and protein; it is dependent, in fact, on the pre-existence of these organic substances, themselves the products of living matter, and in this respect the animal is essentially a parasite on existing animal and plant life. The plant, on the other hand, if it be a green plant, containing chlorophyll, is capable, in the presence of light, of building up both carbohydrate material and protein material from inorganic salts; if it be a fungus, devoid of chlorophyll, whilst it is dependent on pre-existing carbohydrate material and is capable of absorbing, like an animal, protein material as such, it is able to build up its protein food from material chemically simpler than protein. On these basic differences are founded most of the characters which make the higher forms of animal and plant life so different.
The animal body, if it be composed of many cells, follows a different architectural plan; the compact nature of its food, and the yielding nature of its cell-walls, result in a form of structure consisting essentially of tubular or spherical masses of cells arranged concentrically round the food-cavity. The relatively rigid nature of the plant cell-wall, and the attenuated inorganic food-supply of plants, make possible and necessary a form of growth in which the greatest surface is exposed to the exterior, and thus the plant body is composed of flattened laminae and elongated branching growths. The distinctions between animals and plants are in fact obviously secondary and adaptive, and point clearly towards the conception of a common origin for the two forms of life, a conception which is made still more probable by the existence of many low forms in which the primary differences between animals and plants fade out.
An animal may be defined as a living organism, the protoplasm of which does not secrete a cellulose cell-wall, and which requires for its existence protein material obtained from the living or dead bodies of existing plants or animals. The common use of the word animal as the equivalent of mammal, as opposed to bird or reptile or fish, is erroneous.
The classification of the animal kingdom is dealt with in the article zoology.
This material seems to me strongly predicated on the old two-kingdom system, even though it mentions Protista. Biologists do think there is a genuine separation between the animals and plants, based on evolutionary relationships. In that case, most of the material above is irrelevant. It doesn't matter that plants make cellulose cell walls, for instance, because that isn't part of what distinguishes animals. Lots of protozoa don't have cell walls, but are no longer considered animals. Fungi don't have cellulose cell walls, and have never been considered animals. The final definition easily includes both, so I am treating this discussion as somewhere between obsolete and mistaken. Josh
JHWH feels offended
The statement that humans are animals is highly controversial and must be erased. It tramples upon religious people's dignity. Their holy scripture says God created the first humans on a different day from animals and the Father explicitly gave Adam authority over all animals in the world. The Bible explicitly said Sodoma and Gomorra residents were all exterminated for having sex with beasts, thus JHWH showed human and animal cannot mix.
Also Karl Marx, the great communist philosopher said humans are differentiated from animals by the means of "work, ability to think and the ability to speak".
I also find it troubling that no mention is made of creationism is this article, unlike evolution. Whatever you think about those religios fanatics in the U.S. mid-west, Wikipedia is supposed to have a neutral point of view. (Btw, which is silly, e.g. what about Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol-Pot articles).
- Hello, anonymous,
- So maybe we can move humans into a Plant or a Bacteria article, maybe that will sattisfy all JHWH's and make them happy. I do agree that creationism should be mentioned, but only in Human article, since that refers to human belief, not to that of non-human animals. User:Beta m/sig