If insects were bigger would they be animals?

[badgerwatcher]

Glad you're sharing my joke, Beowulf. That's the reaction it usually gets!

Isn't the thing- respiration, absorbtion and excretion, and what about reproduction?

[wyevilla]

Yes, of course you're right.

Now what about viruses - are they alive or not? (New Thread??)

[Paul mabbott]

Basic biology requires the definition of living versus non living versus dead (i.e. formerly living. There are standard criteria ... most of which have come up? It is possible to quibble that some of them are subsets of the others and that the only critical functions are growth and reproduction

Originally Posted by Gill Catton

define alive? I mean more than being the opposite of dead......

[Paul mabbott]

Good question - yes: because they contain genetic material which is amendable in the evolutionary sense; no: because they cannot survive (for long) outside the cells of higher organisms. But then, neither can many parasites, bacteria &c .....

Originally Posted by wyevilla

Yes, of course you're right.

Now what about viruses - are they alive or not? (New Thread??)

[Paul mabbott]

Have trawled all the way back to the beginning of this thread .... insects are animals. I don't understand the question!

Originally Posted by Boddie

Are insects miniature animals? i.e is a small animal an insect and, if so, when does an insect become big enough to be classed an animal?

[eeyore]

Originally Posted by Paul mabbott

Have trawled all the way back to the beginning of this thread .... insects are animals. I don't understand the question!

may be thinking of the basic divisions of animals , insects , birds, plants etc rather than the animal , vegetable , or mineral type approach ?

[speckled wood]

Insects as a group outnumber all other animal species, the size issue is not really relevant but being as they are in the majority they surely are the "normal" sized animals and most backboned animals such as homo sapiens are abnormal in that they are much larger than the normal sized animals such as insects.

SW

[svenrufus]

Originally Posted by eeyore

may be thinking of the basic divisions of animals , insects , birds, plants etc rather than the animal , vegetable , or mineral type approach ?

Nah, Paul's right. Your basic division of 'Animals, Insects, Birds Plants etc' falls over before it starts, as 'animals' is a category above the others (apart from plants) so can't be put in the same list as Insects Birds etc. These latter terms fall within the category Animals lower down on the hierarchy.

I think the problem with this thread is one of an Anthropocentric view of the world. "We are animals, therefore all animals should be like us." That's not the case. As someone else said, we are actually quite exceptional as animals in terms of size.

There are 5 kingdoms. Animalia; Plantae; Fungi; Protoctista; and Monera. There are some grey areas between the categories when it comes to some of the unicellular organisms, but with Insects, there is only one place to put them. They are animals, plain and simple.

[henrya]

Originally Posted by svenrufus

There are 5 kingdoms. Animalia; Plantae; Fungi; Protoctista; and Monera. There are some grey areas between the categories when it comes to some of the unicellular organisms, but with Insects, there is only one place to put them. They are animals, plain and simple.

I seem to remember reading recently that Slime Moulds had been put in a kingdom of their own, but I can't remember where I saw that.

henrya

[Gill Catton]

Originally Posted by henrya

I seem to remember reading recently that Slime Moulds had been put in a kingdom of their own, but I can't remember where I saw that.

henrya

I read something recently too about this, could it have been British Wildlife?

[Paul mabbott]

Originally Posted by svenrufus

There are 5 kingdoms. Animalia; Plantae; Fungi; Protoctista; and Monera. There are some grey areas between the categories when it comes to some of the unicellular organisms, but with Insects, there is only one place to put them. They are animals, plain and simple.

That's one way of looking at it: there are others e.g. Life on Earth where the three kingdoms are two lots of bacteria (Archaeobacteria, Eubacteria) and the rest (Eukaryota). This cladistic view is based on genetic closeness ...... Personally, I'm not a taxonomist so wouldn't want to take sides!

[Paul mabbott]

Originally Posted by Gill Catton

I read something recently too about this, could it have been British Wildlife?

Following on from the other reference you can follow the "trees" down at Eukaryotes

[Gill Catton]

Originally Posted by Paul mabbott

Following on from the other reference you can follow the "trees" down at Eukaryotes

I don't know..... I studied all of this only about ten years ago but it has lain untouched in my head for so long I seem to have forgotten most of it!! how frustrating!!

[Paul mabbott]

Insects fall into the Arthropoda taxon of animals because they have an external skeleton. They are the Class Hexapoda (defined by having six legs). The Hexapoda itself is conventionally divided into two taxa, those that have wings or, like fleas and lice, had wings at an earlier stage of their evolution and those that never had wings. However the cladists divide the Hexapoda into Insecta, Diplura and Protura-Collembola Hexapoda just to confuse us: Insecta being sub-divided into bristletails (Archaeoagnatha) and silverfish (Thysanura)-Pterygota (winged insects as we know them). Then there are many ways to classify the Pterygota - by clades: Pterygota or by the more common orders (Coleoptera, Diptera &c)that we know - generally divided into two supergroups depending on whether they are holometabolous (Endopterygota, Holometabola - having complete metamorphosis such as beetles) or hemimetabolous (Hemimetabola, Exopterygota - growing through a series of nymphal stages such as true bugs).
Hope all is now clear .......

[speckled wood]

What does not help is the confusion that some people have regarding the word "animal" with the word "mammal", I recollect the title of a book that I recently saw on the shelves in WHSmuggs that was something like "Birds, Animals and other Wildlife". The book was actually quite well written in many respects but inside it managed to make Snakes appear to be separate from Reptiles. So it is hardly surprising how confused some perhaps less well informed people manage to become.

It is perhaps even more worrying when you realise that a large percentage of the voting age population obtain all their information about the outside world from the pages of the Sun or Daily Star and Breakfast Television.

SW

[overgrownbramble]

I hold my hands up to this one, what exactly is "animal" as opposed to bird etc? (hangs head in shame)

I consider myself reasonably intelligent and educated, but this one defeats me! Possibly because as you rightly say, there is so much variation in use of the word.

[Gill Catton]

Originally Posted by overgrownbramble

I hold my hands up to this one, what exactly is "animal" as opposed to bird etc? (hangs head in shame)

I consider myself reasonably intelligent and educated, but this one defeats me! Possibly because as you rightly say, there is so much variation in use of the word.

A bird is an animal. Reptiles, fish, amphibians, mammals, insects, other invertebrates all animals. see this:
Animal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[overgrownbramble]

Ah, that's nice and clear, thank you!

[Paul mabbott]

Yes, I'd forgotten about that interpretation - had rather assumed that schools would educate properly .... Certainly, my kids, got proper scientific definitions of everything (as you'd expect ) but I remember one of the lads, when very young, was upset to be lumped in with the 'animals' ....

Originally Posted by speckled wood

What does not help is the confusion that some people have regarding the word "animal" with the word "mammal", I recollect the title of a book that I recently saw on the shelves in WHSmuggs that was something like "Birds, Animals and other Wildlife". The book was actually quite well written in many respects but inside it managed to make Snakes appear to be separate from Reptiles. So it is hardly surprising how confused some perhaps less well informed people manage to become.

It is perhaps even more worrying when you realise that a large percentage of the voting age population obtain all their information about the outside world from the pages of the Sun or Daily Star and Breakfast Television.

SW

[speckled wood]

Originally Posted by Paul mabbott

Yes, I'd forgotten about that interpretation - had rather assumed that schools would educate properly .... Certainly, my kids, got proper scientific definitions of everything (as you'd expect ) but I remember one of the lads, when very young, was upset to be lumped in with the 'animals' ....

When I was about four I asked my mother whether a Shrimp was a Fish, "Don't be silly!" she said ! "A Shrimp is an ANIMAL!"! She also remained convinced to her dying day that an Eel was a kind of Snake. She of course had the benefit of a private education, the state system failed me badly. Birds, Insects n' Fish is animals guv, honest.

SW

[Ambriel]

Originally Posted by henrya

They come into the group I mentioned, of animals that don't have legs!

And let's not forget snails. Although they don't have legs they *do* have feet.

[henrya]

Originally Posted by Ambriel

And let's not forget snails. Although they don't have legs they *do* have feet.

Shouldn't that be 'foots'?!

henrya

[nightshade]

Originally Posted by henrya

Shouldn't that be 'foots'?!

henrya

You could say "they got Sole (Soul) man"