This is the animal kingdom, which contains all multicellular life that can eat, breathe, move, and reproduce.
There are 30+ phyla in the Animal Kingdom, and over 1.5 million described animal species (spoiler alert its like all bugs).
Porifera - "pore-bearing" - contains the sponges.
Sponges are one of the oldest group of animals.
Sponges are sessile and typically have porous bodies to filter food from the water, although some sponges have evolved to be carnivorous.
Sponges' skeletons are made of spicules, usually of silica with the exception of calcerous sponges.
Calcereous Sponges have a body made of calcium carbonate, rather than the usual silica of other sponges.
Demospongiae is a diverse class that contains the vast majority of sponges.
Glass sponges are mostly found in the deep sea.
Their siliceous spicules are more glass-like, and form into pale lattices.
Some scientists guess that they could potentially have lifespans up to 15,000 years, making them the longest lived animals on earth.
Homoscleromorpha is a small class with only one order and two families.
Cnidaria - "nettle" - are animals with stinging cells, including jellyfish, corals, anemones, and hydroids.
Cnidarians have an uncentralized nervous system and are made of a jelly substance called mesoglea.
Many cnidarians are actually colonial organisms, such as siphonophores (my favorite < 3) and corals.
Cnidarians have radial symmetry and mouths surrounded by stinging tentacles.
Almost all Anthozoans are sessile as adults with a free swimming larval stage.
Corals and seapens are colonial organisms made of individual "polyps" while anemones are solitary.
Some Anthozoans use an algae to supplement their energy with photosynthesis.
Anthozoans are divided into two classes depending on whether they have 6 or 8 fold symmetry.
Hexacorals have 6 fold symmetry.
They have simple non-branching tentacles around their mouths.
Hexacorals include soft bodied anemones as wall as corals that form hard skeletons.
Octocorals have 8 fold symmetry.
Octocorals are all colonial organisms, and generally don't form a hard skeleton.
The polyps have tentacles that branch off to make a feathery look.
Echinodermata - "hedgehog skin" - are animals with typically 5-pointed symmetry such as starfish, sea cucumbers, sea urchins, sand dollars.
Before adulthood, echinoderms actually begin as free swimming larvae with bilateral symmetry.
During metamorphosis, one half grows, eventually absorbing the other half and growing radially into typically 5 but sometimes more parts depending on the species.
Chordata - "chord" - includes animals that have a notochord, hollow nerve cord along the back, endostyle/thyroid, gill slits (yes we have them as embryos!), and a post-anal tail (yes we briefly have tails too!).
Some familiar chordates are fish, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals.
About half of chordates are fish.
Annelida - "little ring" - are segmented worms with a flexible yet tough collagen skin.
The segments of Annelids usually have sets of the same organs.
Annelida includes marine worms, terrestrial worms, and leeches.
Mollusca - "soft" - is the second largest phylum, behind Arthropoda.
Molluscs are described by their soft body made of muscle, a mantle with room to breathe and poop, and their nervous system shape.
Mollusca is a very diverse group that includes snails, slugs, octopuses, squid, clams, and much more.
Arthropoda - "jointed legs" - is the largest phylum with over a million *known* species.
Arthropods have a segmented body, pairs of jointed appendages, and a hard exoskeleton made of chitin which is moulted as they grow.
Animals in the Arthropoda phylum range from bugs, crabs, spiders, barnacles, and many more.
