Features of organisms

Kingdom
This is the largest group of all living organisms. There are 5 Kingdoms in which
organisms can be grouped into. These are: Plant, Animal, Fungus, Prokaryote and
Protoctist

i. The Animal Kingdom

Characteristic features of animals:
- multicellular organisms
- cells have a nucleus
- cells have no cell walls and chloroplasts
- They feed on organic substances (substances whose molecules contain
carbon).

Examples of animals

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 ii. The Plant kingdom
Characteristic features of plants:
• multicellular
•Their cells have a nucleus and cell walls made of cellulose and often contain
chloroplasts.
•They feed by photosynthesis.
•They may have roots, stems and leaves (but some plants do not have these organs).

An example of a plant

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iii. The Fungi Kingdom
-Most fungi are made up of thread-like hyphae, rather than cells, and there are many
nuclei scattered throughout the cytoplasm in their hyphae
-The fungi include organisms such as mushrooms, toadstools, puffballs and the
bracket fungi that grow on tree trunks
-There are also the less obvious, but very important, mould fungi, which grow on
stale bread, cheese, fruit or other food

Characteristic features of fungi:

Characteristic features of fungi:
•They are usually multicellular but some such as yeast are unicellular
•They have nuclei and cell walls, but the walls are not made of cellulose.
•They do not have chlorophyll.
•They feed by digesting waste organic material and absorbing it into their cells.

Some examples of fungi

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iv. The Protoctist kingdom
The kingdom Protoctist contains a mixed collection of organisms. They all have cells
with a nucleus, but some have plant-like cells with chloroplasts and cellulose cell walls,
while others have animal-like cells without these features.

Characteristic features of protoctists:

•They are multicellular or unicellular.
•Their cells have a nucleus and may or may not have a cell wall and chloroplasts.
•Some feed by photosynthesis and others feed on organic substances made by other
organisms.

Two examples of protoctists. Paramecium has animal-like cell

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 v. The prokaryote Kingdom
Characteristic features of prokaryotes:
•They are usually unicellular (single-celled).
•They have no nucleus.
•They have cell walls, not made of cellulose.
•They have no mitochondria.
•They have a circular loop of DNA, which is free in the cytoplasm.
•They often have plasmids

The structure of a prokaryotic cell

Classifying animals
Within each kingdom, biologists classify organisms into smaller groups. In the animal
kingdom, these groups include vertebrates and invertebrates. Invertebrates with
jointed legs are called arthropods

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Vertebrates
Vertebrates are animals which have a backbone
The five classes of vertebrates are: Fish, Amphibians, Reptiles, birds and mammals
i) Fish
- Fish are cold-blooded vertebrates.
- Their bodies are covered with overlapping moist scales
- they have fins, which are important in movement.
- have gills to breathe. The gills are protected by a bony plate called the
operculum

ii) Amphibians
- Have smooth moist skin
- Their eggs have no shells and are laid in water.
- The tadpoles live in water, but adults often live on land.
- Larva has gills and adult have lungs
Examples of vertebrates are frogs and toads

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 iii) Reptiles
Reptiles are land-living vertebrates. Reptiles include lizards, snakes, turtles, tortoises
and crocodiles
- They have dry scales on their skin. This dry, scaly skin helps reduce water
loss
- They lay eggs with rubbery shells

vi. Birds
-Birds are endothermic.
-body covered in feathers
-Their two fore limbs are wings
-Have a beak
-Lay eggs with a hard shell

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iv) Mammals

- Mammals are warm-blooded vertebrates

- Have four limbs.
- Skin covered with hair or fur.
- they have a diaphragm, which plays a part in breathing
- The females have mammary glands and suckle their young on milk.
- All mammals give birth to fully formed young instead of laying eggs.
- Have sweat glands on their skin
- -Have different kinds of teeth (incisors, canines, premolars and molars)
- Have pinna (ear flap ) on the outside of the body
- Their young develop in uterus attached to the mother by a placenta
- Endothermic

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Arthropods
-The name arthropod means ‘jointed limbs’, and this is a feature common to them all.
Characteristic features of all arthropods:
•They have several pairs of jointed legs.
•They have an exoskeleton.

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i) Crustaceans
- crustaceans have an exoskeleton and jointed limbs
- have two pairs of antennae ( long thin feelers attached to the head) which are
sensitive to touch and to chemicals
- Have more than four pairs of jointed legs.
- they have compound eyes. Compound eyes are made up of tens or hundreds
of separate lenses with light-sensitive cells underneath. They can form a simple
image and are very sensitive to movement.

Examples of marine crustaceans are: crabs, prawns, lobsters, shrimps and

barnacles. Woodlice are land-dwelling crustaceans

External features of a crustacean (lobster ×0.2)

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 ii) Insects
- Insects have segmented bodies with a firm exoskeleton
- They have three pairs of jointed legs
- compound eyes
- two pairs of wings – one or both may be vestigial (become so small they are
no longer useful)
- The segments are grouped into distinct head, thorax and abdomen
- They breathe through tubes called tracheae.
- Their body is divided into a head, thorax and abdomen.
- They have one pair of antennae
Wasps, butterflies, mosquitoes, houseflies, greenflies and beetles (e.g. ladybird) are
examples of insects.

External features of an insect

iii) Arachnids
- bodies are divided into two regions -cephalothorax (combined head and
thorax region) and abdomen
- They have four pairs of jointed legs
- They have no antennae
- They have two pairs of pedipalps. One pair is used in reproduction; the other
is used to pierce their prey and paralyse it with a poison secreted by a gland
at the base
- There are usually several pairs of simple eyes
- They are arthropods with four pairs of jointed legs.
Examples are spiders, scorpions, mites and ticks

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 A scorpion is an example of an arachnid

External features of an arachnid

iv) Myriapods
- the body is segmented
- There is a pair of jointed legs on each body segment
- They have one pair of antennae and simple eyes
- Their body consists of many similar segments.
- Each of their body segments has jointed legs.
Examples are centipedes and millipedes

A giant African millipede, an example of a myriapod

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 External features of a myriapod

Key features of the four classes of arthropods

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The Animal Kingdom- Vertebrate Classes

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Classifying plants
-The plant kingdom includes organisms such as ferns and flowering plants

Ferns
-Ferns are plants with leaves called fronds. They do not produce flowers, but instead
reproduce by means of spores produced on the underside of the fronds. Most ferns
are quite small, but some species can be as much as 20 m tall

Characteristic features of ferns:

•They are plants with roots, stems and leaves (fronds).
•They do not produce flowers.
•They reproduce by spores produced on the undersides of their fronds

Flowering plants
Characteristic features of flowering plants:
•They are plants with roots, stems and leaves
 They reproduce using flowers and seeds
•Their seeds are produced inside an ovary, in the flower

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Flowering plants can be divided into two main groups – dicotyledons and
monocotyledons. These names refer to the structure of their seeds. The seeds of
flowering plants contain ‘seed leaves’ or cotyledons.
Monocotyledons (monocots for short) have only one cotyledon in their seeds, whereas
dicotyledons (dicots) have two

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Characteristic features of dicots:
•They have seeds with two cotyledons.
•They usually have a main root with side roots coming out from it.
•Their leaves have a network of veins.
•They have flower parts (e.g. petals) in multiples of four or five.
•They have vascular bundles in the stem, arranged in a ring (see Chapter 8).

Characteristic features of monocots:

They have seeds with one cotyledon.
•Their roots grow out directly from the stem.
•Their leaves have parallel veins.
•They have flower parts in multiples of three.
•They have vascular bundles in the stem, arranged randomly.

Viruses

Structure of a virus

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