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All species of animals, land plants and most fungi are multicellular, as are many algae, whereas a few organisms are partially uni- and partially multicellular, like slime molds and social amoebae such as the genus Dictyostelium. [2] [3] Multicellular organisms arise in various ways, for example by cell division or by aggregation of many single ...
Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the biological kingdom Animalia (/ ˌ æ n ɪ ˈ m eɪ l i ə / [4]).With few exceptions, animals consume organic material, breathe oxygen, have myocytes and are able to move, can reproduce sexually, and grow from a hollow sphere of cells, the blastula, during embryonic development.
A life form (also spelled life-form or lifeform) is an entity that is living, [1] [2] such as plants , animals , and fungi . It is estimated that more than 99% of all species that ever existed on Earth, amounting to over five billion species, [3] are extinct. [4] [5] Earth is the only celestial body known to harbor life forms. No form of ...
Eusocial insects like ants and honey bees are multicellular animals that live in colonies with a highly organized social structure. Colonies of some social insects may be deemed superorganisms. [6] Animals, such as humans and rodents, form breeding or nesting colonies, potentially for more successful mating and to better protect offspring.
Animals are multicellular eukaryotes, [note 1] and are distinguished from plants, algae, and fungi by lacking cell walls. [1] Marine invertebrates are animals that inhabit a marine environment apart from the vertebrate members of the chordate phylum; invertebrates lack a vertebral column. Some have evolved a shell or a hard exoskeleton.
The multicellular eukaryotes include the animals, plants, and fungi, but again, these groups too contain many unicellular species. [11] Eukaryotic cells are typically much larger than those of prokaryotes —the bacteria and the archaea —having a volume of around 10,000 times greater.
The last common ancestor of animals and choanoflagellates was unicellular, perhaps forming simple colonies; in contrast, the last common ancestor of all eumetazoan animals was a multicellular organism, with differentiated tissues, a definite "body plan", and embryonic development (including gastrulation). [12]
Some cells divide by budding (for example baker's yeast), resulting in a "mother" and a "daughter" cell that is initially smaller than the parent. Budding is also known on a multicellular level; an animal example is the hydra, [10] which reproduces by budding. The buds grow into fully matured individuals which eventually break away from the ...