Marsupials are mammals and, like all other mammals, belong to the class Mammalia. Marsupials are known as “pouched mammals” because, after being born, their young continue to develop in a special pouch in the mother’s abdomen.
Marsupials belong to the infraclass Metatheria, which is one of the three main mammal groups, the others being the egg-laying monotremes and the placental mammals.
Snakes are not amphibians; snakes are reptiles that belong to the class Reptilia, a group that also contains animals such as lizards, turtles and crocodilians. Amphibians belong to the class Amphibia, a group that also contains animals such as frogs, toads, newts, caecilians and salamanders.
Insects are animals. Like all animals, insects are multicellular organisms that respire using oxygen, reproduce sexually, eat and move. Insects belong to the animal class Insecta, which, with around one million living species, is by far the biggest class within the animal kingdom. Insects make up at least two-thirds–and likely a much larger proportion–of all known living animal species.
On this page you’ll find a simple, fact-filled guide to insects and why they are considered to be animals…
A turtle is a reptile. Turtles belong to the order Testudines, which is one of four groups of living reptiles. Turtles possess the typical characteristics of reptiles, being cold-blooded, egg-laying, scaly-skinned vertebrate animals that breathe air with lungs.
The answer to the question “Is a turtle a reptile?” is “yes”, but in order to fully understand why turtles are reptiles – and the differences between turtles and other reptiles – we need to explore the reptile family tree…
Alligators are not dinosaurs, but they, along with the other crocodilians, are the closest living relatives of dinosaurs (apart from birds, which are dinosaurs). Although alligators are neither dinosaurs, nor the descendants of dinosaurs, they are more closely-related to dinosaurs (and therefore birds) than they are to other living groups of reptiles, such as snakes and turtles.
To understand why alligators are not dinosaurs, and how the two groups of animals are related, we need to go back millions of years in the reptile family tree to the Mesozoic Era…
Most fish lay eggs… but sharks are not most fish. On this page we take a look at shark life and answer the question “Do sharks lay eggs?”.
A beetle is an insect. Beetles make up the order Coleoptera, the largest insect group; there are more beetles than any other type of insect. Around 40% of all insects are beetles, and one in four of all known animals is a beetle.
On this page we take a look at what makes a beetle a beetle, find out the characteristics of beetles, and discover some of the many different types of beetles…
Is a spider an insect? On this page we ask ‘Are spiders insects?’ and explain the differences between insects and spiders. We’ll also travel back hundreds of millions of years to the Cambrian Period, when the earliest ancestors of both spiders and insects first appeared…
Is a dolphin a mammal? On this page you’ll find out the answer to this often-asked question! You’ll also learn an interesting fact about dolphins and hippos …
