Animal classification (not deep).
Means grouping animals based on how they are built, how they live, and how they are related. Scientists do this to understand the huge variety of animals on Earth and their connections through evolution.
All animals are placed under the Kingdom Animalia, and from there, they are divided step by step into smaller groups: Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, and Species. Each step shows how closely animals are related.
The first big division inside the animal kingdom is between invertebrates and vertebrates.
Invertebrates are animals without a backbone. They are the oldest and most common kind, making up about 95% of all animal species. They include insects, worms, jellyfish, snails, corals, and spiders. Many of them have soft bodies, and some are protected by shells or hard coverings like exoskeletons.
Vertebrates are animals with a backbone. They include fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. They have an internal skeleton made of bone or cartilage, which helps them move easily and grow larger. Their nervous systems are more developed, which allows learning and complex behaviors.
Scientists today don’t just look at an animal’s shape or where it lives. They study its internal organs, development, reproduction, and DNA to find out how it evolved. For example, whales look like fish but share more DNA with land mammals, showing that their ancestors once lived on land.
This kind of study is called phylogenetics, which means tracing how all living things are related through evolution.
So, animal classification is not just about putting animals into boxes — it’s about discovering the story of life, how every creature on Earth, big or small, shares a link in one long evolutionary chain.
