• Question: why are the anemals made?????

    Asked by lionalmessi to Anil, Blanka, Cees, Emma, Mike on 27 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Emma Trantham

      Emma Trantham answered on 27 Jun 2012:

      This is quite a complex question!

      Technically animals weren’t ‘made’ as such but have evolved over millions of years.

      There’s a few theries as to how exactly life started on Earth but basically by 3.8 billion years ago there were single celled organisms on the planet. These organisms evolved and got more complex and multicellular organisms started to appear. These evolved too and eventually, several billion years after the first single celled organisms appeared there started to be animals on the planet.

      I don’t think there was a purpose to animals appearing. It’s just that as organisms adapted better to their environment they evolved into what we call animals.

      Does that make sense to you? Do you understand the stuff I was saying about evolution? (It’s ok if you don’t – I wasn’t sure how much you would have covered about evolution at school so I may have missed some important bits out!)

      If you do have any questions about evolution please ask them and we will do our best to answer 🙂

    • Photo: Blanka Sengerova

      Blanka Sengerova answered on 27 Jun 2012:

      Animals aren’t really made as such, but they evolve from existing species, some of which have since become extinct and some of thich are still around. If you are thinking of mammals, for instance, they have all evolved from a common ancestor (the species that gave rise to all of the mammals we see today) by stepwise changes that are caused by mutation of the animal’s DNA. If a certain mutation was beneficial to a species, it would have become widespread in the population. If enough mutations/changes accumulate, then one species becomes another.

      Much earlier than the common ancestor of mammals there would have been a common ancestor from which other types of animal evolved, for example fish and birds. If you go back far enough, the original life on earth will have been very primitive single celled organisms like bacteria.

      Does that help to clarify your question for you?

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