Characteristics of Living Things
When you look at the world around you, how do you categorise or group what you see? In science, the broadest groupings are living and non-living. This may sound simple, but it is sometimes difficult to decide whether something is truly alive or not. So why would we say earthworms are living?
All living things share life processes such as growth and reproduction. Most scientists use seven life processes or characteristics to determine whether something is living or non-living.
The table below describes seven characteristics of most living things and contains references to earthworms to help you decide if they are living or non-living.
Further classification
Based on the information above, we can confidently categorise earthworms as living things as they carry out all seven life processes.
It is now possible to classify them further into a series of hierarchical categories: kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus and species. Classifying living things into these categories is an important way for scientists to show how living things are related to each other. Most scientists classify living things into one of the following six kingdoms. Which kingdom do you think earthworms belong to?
- Bacteria are single-celled microorganisms that don’t have a nuclear membrane.
- Protozoans are single-celled organisms that are generally much larger than bacteria. They may be autotrophic or heterotrophic.
- Chromists are a diverse group of plant-like organisms and range from very small to very large. They are found in almost all environments.
- Fungi are multicellular and rely on breaking down organic material as they are not able to make their own food.
- Plants are multicellular and autotrophic – they use photosynthesis to produce food using sunlight.
- Animals are multicellular. They are heterotrophic and rely on other organisms for food.
Animal characteristics
Video: Physical adaptations for life underground
What did you decide? Sometimes people are surprised to find out that earthworms are actually animals – the same kingdom as humans, cats, dogs, dolphins and even spiders! Just as there are characteristics of living things, there are also characteristics of animals that can help you to decide whether a living thing is an animal or not.
Key characteristics of animals include the following:
- They obtain energy by consuming other organisms (heterotrophic).
- They are able to physically move their bodies about at one or more stages of their life cycle.
- Their bodies are made up of multiple cells.
- Sexual reproduction, where a sperm and an egg combine to produce a juvenile animal.
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