Life in the Animal Kingdom

Scientists have been studying, probing and contemplating but they have not been able to prove that there is human and animal kingdom life elsewhere in the Solar System except on Planet Earth. When meteorites have fallen on Earth, we have learnt that they contain fossilised kinds of organisms. Few astronomers have been able to detect chemicals in the outer space that could be described as amino acids or the building blocks of ice. Let us learn a bit about animal life. The smallest forms of animal life could be found in the one-celled protozoans. They are very small for the naked eye and have to be probed through the microscopes. When you look at them, you will find they reveal themselves as miracles of symmetry and design. That is the glory of God, the Creator! The cell is really one of the truest wonders of nature. Each cell has a wall around it and a nucleus as the control centre. This nucleus will hold the chemical code that determines the forms of the cells and the physical features of a particular animal. All animals apart from the protozoans will have many millions of these cells. Mammals Among animals, we will come across mammals with mammary glands whose hallmark is hair, warm blood and glands that produce milk. The largest mammals are the great whales. The blue whale is the biggest animal in the kingdom. The whales are found in the sea where they breathe air when they come up. Mostly, they swim and live like fish. Animals of this size find it easy to survive under water as that is the only medium that can support their heavy weight. Each animal has developed physical features that help it to find food and defend itself. The elephant has been given four legs like pillars to support its vast and huge body and it has a trunk with strongest muscles as an extension of its nose to serve diverse functions which are similar to how humans use their hands. With such an adaptable organ, an elephant can squirt water over its body to keep itself cool or even pick up things from the ground to eat, like grass. The giraffe, being very tall, can feed on the leaves of a tree with its long neck that allows it to browse and feed without much effort among the tree branches. The mole that burrows in the ground, looking for worms to eat has been given paws that function as spades. Another great example of a termite hunter is the aardvark. Vertebrates, Amphibians and Reptiles There is greater diversity, outside of the mammals. Vertebrates such as birds, fish, amphibians and reptiles are suited to life in a special kind of environment. When we explore the invertebrates, those animals who do not have backbones offer us a remarkable diversity. The insects are the most found among invertebrates and for that matter; among all animals. They have the largest number of the different types of species. If we start counting, the number is more than a million that have also been classified. There is possibility that more are yet to be discovered. They occupy almost every kind of land and freshwater habitats. They can live high up in the mountains and could be found deep in the caves; in the tropics and even in frozen lands of the Antarctica. Many species even migrate like the birds and they can travel hundreds of miles. Some of the frailest creatures like the butterflies are frequent migrants, specially the monarch butterflies of North America and the painted ladies of Europe and Africa who are capable of travelling huge distances. The ability among some animals to find their way is a wonder of nature which has not been fully understood by man, yet. Recent research has shown us that the homing pigeons have tissues in their heads that contain traces of highly magnetic mineral called magnetite that acts as a built-in compass and allows them to respond to the magnetism available on Earth. This substance is also found in bees who also display great navigational skills. Some birds have been found to navigate by the stars or the direction of the Sun with the help of a kind of a built-in clock. Some birds and animals use landmarks. For example, a pigeon can easily identify its home loft. As an exercise, eighteen albatrosses making Midway Island their home were taken in an aeroplane to dispersed places in a range of three thousand miles away but they all managed to find their way back to Midway island within a reasonable time. Such experiments give us evidence that animals have highly developed senses, which are found lacking in Man, without the aid of a compass oor GPS tools. The sense of smell is an important means of communication to wild animals. Insects give off few chemical substances such as pheromones and they serve as identification signals to others of the same kind of species. These pheromones also come in handy when they mate and during their courtship. The hint of a right scent will attract a male insect to a female one over considerable distances. Another interesting animal is a horsefly. Its eye consists of several separate lens units that are called ommatidia. The lens receive light from a very small field of view. The sight is a result of a build up of a series of dots that form an image like a mosaic, in a similar way to a photograph in a newspaper which is made up of a number of dots of ink or like an image on a colour television screen that is made up of a series of dots of light. Horseflies have iridescent eyes that glow with shades of green and tinged with dark brown or purple. Another good example is the Monarch Butterfly which is native to North America and it is one of the most remarkable travellers in nature. These butterflies are seen all over Canada and the United States of America during summer and they breed as far north as the shores of Hudson Bay. In the autumn season, they migrate southwards in large swarms and their migration ends when they reach the Gulf of Mexico. During winter, they hang from trees and do not fly. They are in a semi-torpid state. As son as the spring arrives, they wake up and fly back northwards. It has been observed that they are capable of flying over two thousand five hundred miles in their round trip.