Animalia

Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms belonging to the biological kingdom Animalia. Animals consume organic material, breathe oxygen, have muscle cells, can reproduce sexually, and grow from a hollow sphere of cells, the blastula, during embryonic development. With few exceptions, animals are able to move. Animals form a clade, meaning that they arose from a single common ancestor. Over 1.5 million living animal species have been described, of which around 1.05 million are insects, over 85,000 are molluscs, and around 65,000 are vertebrates. It has been estimated there are as many as 7.77 million animal species on Earth. Animal body lengths range from 8.5 μm (0.00033 in) to 33.6 m (110 ft). They have complex ecologies and interactions with each other and their environments, forming intricate food webs. The scientific study of animals is known as zoology, and the study of animal behaviour is known as ethology.

A picture published with the record for Animalia. What it shows has not been checked.

Chiswick Chap · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
OpisthokontaPBDB

Time the record covers

At least 504 million years on record.

The record covers at least 509.7 Mya to 5.333 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 538.8 Mya to 2.58 Mya.

Cambrian — about 1007 of 12000 occurrencesCambrianOrdovician — about 4063 of 12000 occurrencesSilurian — about 2775 of 12000 occurrencesDevonian — about 1375 of 12000 occurrencesDevonianCarboniferous — about 2606 of 12000 occurrencesCarboniferousPermian — about 173 of 12000 occurrencesPermianEarly Triassic — about 0 of 12000 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 0 of 12000 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 0 of 12000 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 0 of 12000 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 0 of 12000 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 0 of 12000 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 0 of 12000 occurrencesLate Cretaceous — about 0 of 12000 occurrencesPaleocene — about 0 of 12000 occurrencesEocene — about 0 of 12000 occurrencesOligocene — about 0 of 12000 occurrencesMiocene — about 0 of 12000 occurrencesPliocene — about 1 of 12000 occurrencesPleistocene — about 0 of 12000 occurrences550–531 Mya — about 8 occurrences531–513 Mya — about 86 occurrences513–495 Mya — about 519 occurrences495–476 Mya — about 695 occurrences476–458 Mya — about 945 occurrences458–440 Mya — about 3185 occurrences440–421 Mya — about 2268 occurrences421–403 Mya — about 630 occurrences403–385 Mya — about 481 occurrences385–366 Mya — about 294 occurrences366–348 Mya — about 422 occurrences348–330 Mya — about 731 occurrences330–311 Mya — about 279 occurrences311–293 Mya — about 1452 occurrences293–275 Mya — about 3 occurrences18–0 Mya — about 1 occurrence509.7 Mya5.333 Mya550 Mya0 Mya

12,000+ occurrences of Animalia on record. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

12,000 occurrences read

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. The read hit its cap, so every figure above is a floor and the shares are of the occurrences read. More on what this infers.

Found in

at least 301 formations

Kope — 38.87°N, 84.46°WKope — 39.00°N, 84.00°WForaker Limestome — 39.49°N, 96.27°WForaker Limestome — 39.07°N, 96.07°WForaker Limestome — 39.25°N, 96.57°WForaker Limestome — 39.39°N, 96.41°WForaker Limestome — 39.07°N, 96.18°WForaker Limestome — 37.64°N, 96.43°WForaker Limestome — 37.65°N, 96.46°WForaker Limestome — 38.15°N, 96.32°WEdwardsville — 39.50°N, 86.50°WEdwardsville — 39.75°N, 86.67°WEdwardsville — 39.25°N, 86.33°WWaynesville — 39.45°N, 83.83°WWaynesville — 39.44°N, 84.20°WWaynesville — 39.42°N, 85.01°WWaynesville — 39.00°N, 84.00°WDeadwood — 43.85°N, 103.36°WDeadwood — 44.42°N, 103.71°WDeadwood — 47.42°N, 105.59°WDeadwood — 47.15°N, 110.22°WDeadwood — 47.98°N, 102.92°WMahantango — 40.50°N, 77.25°WMahantango — 40.05°N, 77.52°WFairview — 39.47°N, 87.41°WFairview — 39.00°N, 84.00°WJoslin Hill — 43.21°N, 75.46°WDenley Limestone — 43.21°N, 75.46°WWhitewater — 39.83°N, 84.89°WWhitewater — 39.42°N, 85.01°WWhitewater — 39.00°N, 84.00°WLangara — 60.00°N, 11.00°ELangara — 59.88°N, 10.59°ECape Phillips — 75.13°N, 95.00°WCape Phillips — 75.00°N, 95.00°WCape Phillips — 75.10°N, 94.00°WCape Phillips — 74.10°N, 94.00°WRochester Shale — 43.15°N, 77.62°WRochester Shale — 43.17°N, 78.69°WKings Falls — 43.21°N, 75.46°WElton Beds — 52.37°N, 2.73°WElton Beds — 52.17°N, 3.42°WElton Beds — 52.12°N, 3.55°WHenryhouse — 35.08°N, 98.24°WLangoyen — 60.00°N, 11.00°ELangoyen — 59.88°N, 10.59°ESolvik — 59.92°N, 10.75°EAlan Mountain Limestone — 47.42°N, 105.59°WWann — 36.57°N, 95.98°WWann — 36.76°N, 96.01°WWann — 36.53°N, 95.98°WWann — 36.92°N, 95.81°WWann — 36.92°N, 95.90°WWann — 36.55°N, 96.08°WLost Branch — 40.73°N, 92.87°WLost Branch — 40.48°N, 93.00°WLost Branch — 38.25°N, 94.69°WLost Branch — 37.16°N, 95.46°WLost Branch — 37.19°N, 95.42°WLost Branch — 38.02°N, 94.91°WLost Branch — 35.94°N, 96.00°WLost Branch — 35.12°N, 96.43°WCorryville — 39.00°N, 84.00°WStanton — 41.01°N, 96.23°WStanton — 41.29°N, 95.09°WStanton — 41.37°N, 94.19°WStanton — 37.68°N, 95.64°WStanton — 37.13°N, 95.81°WStanton — 37.00°N, 95.83°WStanton — 37.22°N, 95.83°WLiberty — 39.42°N, 85.01°WLiberty — 39.00°N, 84.00°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Animalia has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. The read hit its cap, so each count is a floor. 277 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 1,649 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Found in the same rock

634 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records at least 221 sites for Animalia, and this reads 221 of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

at least 245 references

Each of the 12,000 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. That read hit its cap, so each count is a floor. 233 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content2

Picture of Animalia

Credit
Chiswick Chap
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
Commercial use
the licence does not allow it

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itOpisthokonta through timeThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Linnaeus 1758)