What is an ANIMAL?

The animal kingdom is a vast collection of weird and wonderful

creatures. Members of this group come in many different shapes
and sizes, but they are all made up of cells, and they all have
ANIMAL KINGDOM

nerves and muscles to move and respond to the world around

them. Most important, all animals eat food to make energy.
ANIMALS
Warm and cold blood Birds and mammals are warm-blooded
animals, which means they make their own body heat using the
energy from their food. Other animals, such as amphibians, fishes,
insects, and reptiles, are cold-blooded creatures, which means they
cannot make their own body heat. Instead, cold-blooded animals VERTEBRATES
rely on outside sources of heat, such as the warmth of the Sun, to are animals with backbones and
raise their body temperature and carry on their daily lives. include amphibians, birds, fishes,
mammals, and reptiles.

MAMMALS BIRDS REPTILES AMPHIBIANS FISHES

Mammals have Birds have feathers Reptiles have dry Amphibians spend most Fishes have fins
fur and feed their and produce young skin covered with of their adult lives on and scales and
young with milk by laying eggs. Most scales or horny land and breathe air, spend life in
from the mother’s birds move using plates. Most produce but return to water the water. They
mammary glands. their wings to fly. young by laying eggs. to breed. breathe using gills.

FOOD CHAINS When

animals eat other animals, the
energy in the food passes through
a food chain. The first link in
the chain is a plant. Plants
create food using the energy
from the Sun. When an
animal eats the plant,
ENERGY FLOW These
simple food chains show the
feeding relationships between
different animals. Energy flows Cougar
Orca (killer
whale) up each chain until it reaches
an animal that has no natural
predators—represented here by
a serval, an orca, and a cougar. Raccoon
Sea lion

the energy passes up

the chain. The food Serval cat
Herring
chain continues Starling
Snake
as animals eat
other animals. Spider
Mouse
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