Teresa Kay Huben, age 11, of Post Falls, Ida., for her question:
HOW MANY KINDS OF ANIMALS ARE THERE?
Scientists have pointed out that there is a balance and basic pattern in nature called the web of life. Much of the food that plants need comes from the body wastes of animals and from their decayed bodies after they die. Many types of animals stay alive by eating some of the plants. Animals and plants are linked in this marvelous balance of nature.
All living things are grouped into two divisions: the plant kingdom and the animal kingdom. Most animals move around, and most plants are held to the ground by roots. But some living things, called protists, seem to fit into either division. Bacteria and some other forms of life that can be seen only under a microscope fall into that class.
There are so many different kinds of animals on earth that no one has been able to count and classify them. Hundreds of new ones are found each year.
So far scientists have classified almost 1 million different kinds of animals.
The largest group of animals, by far, is made up of insects. There are more than 800,000 kinds of insects on earth.
Rounding out the animal count are more than 30,000 different kinds of fishes, more than 9,000 varieties of birds, about 6,000 types of reptiles, about 3,000 kinds of amphibians and approximately 5,000 kinds of mammals.
Animals come in almost every possible shape and size. They range from the simple one celled protozoans to 95 feet long blue whales. They live on and under the ground and also in the water. Some fly, some walk, some crawl, and some don't move at all.
Zoologists, the scientists who study animals, classify them in groups based on the characteristics of their bodies.
An animal whose inside temperature remains the same throughout the day and night is called warmblooded. If the temperature of the body varies from time to time, the animal is called coldblooded. The warmblooded group is made up of birds and most mammals. All others, which make up a majority of the animal kingdom, are coldblooded. Included in the coldblooded group are animals that have no blood at all, such as sponges and jellyfish.
Only man is more intelligent than the monkeys and apes, the animals who have the best learning ability. Cats and dogs also show good learning ability, with bears, tigers and wolves next on the scale. Elephants and horses are known for their ability to respond well to signals and commands, with the pig winning honors as the best problem solving hoofed animal.
Most intelligent of the animals that live in the water is the bottle nosed dolphin, with the whale not too far behind.