• Question: Who made all the animals?

    Asked by bellaswan123 to Anil, Blanka, Cees, Emma, Mike on 28 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Emma Trantham

      Emma Trantham answered on 28 Jun 2012:

      I don’t think that the animals were ‘made’ as such – more that the animals we see today have evolved from other animals long ago.

      Life first started as single-celled organisms that then evolved (so they were all slightly different, some were more suited to the environment than others so these produced more offspring which meant that the good traits became more common in the population). Some of these organisms evolved into multicellular organisms and eventually into what we now think of as animals.

      There’s a bit more of a detailed answer about animal evolution here: /niobiumj12-zone/2012/06/27/why-are-the-anemals-made/

    • Photo: Blanka Sengerova

      Blanka Sengerova answered on 28 Jun 2012:

      I agree with Emma that animals have evolved and weren’t made, but maybe we are being too philosophical. So for an alternate answer:

      New members of a species are formed when a male and female member of that species mate and this results in the meeting and joining of a sperm and egg cell (or equivalent). This leads to the formation of a fertilised egg or an embryo. The embryo starts dividing as a result of nutrition via the mother’s placenta (as in mammals) or by using the protein in eggyolk (as in birds and reptiles). Once fully formed the animal is born through the birth canal or hatches from the egg.

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