What are animals?

 



With almost 2 million species identified to date,and even more than that awaiting discovery,animals are the most varied living things on the planet.

For over a billion years, they have adapted to the changing world around them, developing a vast array of different lifestyles in the struggle to survive.
At one extreme, animals include fast-moving predators, such as sharks, big cats, and birds of prey; at the other, there are the inconspicuous sorters and sifters of the animal world leftovers, living unseen in the soil or on the deep-sea bed. Together, they make up the animal kingdom - a vast collection of living things that are linked by a shared biology and that occupy a dominant place in life on earth. 


From the book: Animals