Classification of Animals

Animals are multicellular i.e. with multiple cells organisms which grow to take a particular shape. Usually all animals, whether wild or pets, can move independently and without any support and they have other living organisms for food. It's from the Latin term 'animal' which means soul, that the word 'animal' comes from. In biological terms, the word animal means all categories which belong to the Kingdom Animalia, which includes creatures which range from humans to insects.

Animal Classification

When we say classification of animals, we can basically divide them into main groups - vertebrates and invertebrates. Vertebrates have a backbone, while invertebrates are those which don't have a backbone. In all there are more than 800,000 animal species in the Kingdom Animalia and most of them are included in the phylum of Arthropod i.e. invertebrates. Usually, people don't think of earthworm or jellyfish as animals, but actually they are, thereby making the animal kingdom classification so huge. Each living organism is classified into Kingdom - Phylum - Class - Order - Family - Genus - Species. There are basically five kingdoms of which animalia is one and the others being Plantae, which includes plants, Protista, comprising single-celled organisms which are invisible to the human eye, Fungi, which includes yeasts, molds, mushrooms, etc. and Monera, which includes three types of Bacteria.

The next classification by which animals are known is the phylum or phyla. There are different phyla in each kingdom. Chordata is the most well-known phyla, as it includes all animals which has a backbone, which includes all birds, fish, mammals, amphibians, insects, snails, etc.

After phyla comes the class which is again broken down into smaller groups of animals such as Mammalia (mammals), Amphibia (amphibians), Reptilia (reptiles), Aves (birds).

Next comes the order and every class is made up of several orders. For example, mammalia is broken into Chiroptera (bats), Carnivora (cats, dogs), Proboscidea (elephants), etc. These Orders are further divided into Families, so if we take the Order Carnivora, it is divided into Ursidae (bears), Felidae (cats), Canidae (dogs), etc. The category which follows include the Genus which divides the members of the Family further into different categories. For example, the Felidae family can be further broken down into Panthera (lion, tiger), Felis (domestic cats), Neofelis (clouded leopard), etc. And finally comes the species and if we take the same example as above, Panthera is further divided into Leo (the Lion), tigris (tigers), etc.

Classification of Animals for Kids

When you teach kids of classification of animals, it may not be possible to explain them all in one go. So while explaining them, you can use the bottom up instead of the top down approach, starting from the species and ending with the Kingdom. For examples, you can ask them what is the similarities between cats, dogs, dolphins, whales and humans? The answer to that is milk. All these animals feed their young milk when they are born. Moreover, they have hair on their body and are warm-blooded, meaning they can adapt to different rage of temperatures. You can use similar examples while teaching kids about animal classification.

Charting a Classification of Animals

Making a chart of animal kingdom is not that tough as it may seem. The only thing you should know are the animal classification and then prepare a chart. While making a chart, you can break the animal kingdom into two parts, vertebrates (those which have bones) and invertebrates (those which don't have bones). Once you have done that, you can classify them into sub categories like mammals, birds, amphibians, fish and reptiles for vertebrates and list the common characteristics of these categories. Invertebrates include porifera (like sponge), starfish, mollusks, arthropods, etc. Now you can further divide animals with backbones into cold-blooded reptiles like snakes, frogs, etc., warm-blooded animals like whales, dolphins, etc., winged animals like birds, animals which have gills such as fish and those that have lungs as well as gills like frogs.

Classification of animals is quite easy, but you need to know which category they fall into. While teaching kids, it's always better to use pictorial form of classification so that they can learn better.