FILAMER CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY

AUTONOMOUS STATUS – CHED

GRADUATE SCHOOL
Roxas Avenue, Roxas City 5800, Philippines
Tel. No. (036) 6212 – 317; Fax. No. (036) 6213 – 075
Website: http://www.filameredu.ph

Reporters: JIMKEL PLACIO Professor: JUDY E. GIGARE

JUDY ANNE V. FLORES

Animal Taxonomy
Animal taxonomy is a grouping or categorizing of animals into distinct groups with other similar organisms and a given
name. The classification of organisms has various hierarchical categories gradually shift from being broad and identifying
single species.
Kingdom: Animalia
Animals can be identified from the other eukaryotes based on the following characteristics:
1. Animals are multicellular but the cells do not have cell walls.
2. They are actively mobile organisms and such mobility is related to food acquisition.
3. Animals are heterotrophic, generally ingestive and with a digestive cavity that is either saclike or tube-like.
4. Animals have body plans that may be irregular.
5. Animal development involves a three germ-layer gastrula. Each germ layer serve as the origin of the different organs
that compose the body.
6. Animals have a body that is divided into different segments. Each segment enables the animals to cope with its
environment and to do various kinds of activities.
7. Animals have supportive and protective structures that may either be located externally (exoskeleton) or internally
(endoskeleton).
8. Methods of reproduction from sexual or asexual, and the alternation of the two methods so as to propagate the
species.
9. In terms of sexuality, animals may dioecious or monoecius (hermaphrodite).
10. Animals may also be egg layers (oviparous) or they may give birth to the young alive (viviparous).
Invertebrate Phyla
1. Phylum Porifera (Pore-bearing Animals – the Sponges)
Sponges are the simplest animals. They are multicellular, but their cells are not organized into tissues. Sponges are
aquatic animals, mostly marine species. Their bodies are covered with pores or ostia and canal systems where water
passes. These spores and canal systems are lined with specialized flagellated cells called choanoacytes (collar cells).
Reproduction by sponges is by both sexual and asexual means. Asexual reproduction is by means of external of external
buds. Sexual reproduction takes place the mesoglea.
Three canal system:
1. Asconoid- is a canal system that is shaped like a simple tube perforated by pores.
2. Syconoid- is the larger asconoid. The system consists of tubular canal with a single oscolum.
3. Leuconoid – is the largest and most complex canal system. This canal system is characterized by numerous canals
that lead to numerous small chambers lined with flagellated cells.
2. Phylum Cnidaria (coelenterates)
They are found mostly in marine environments. The name phylum comes from the Greek word “cnidos”, which mean,
“stinging nettle”. The stinging structures are actually nematocysts that eject barbed threads, which they use mainly for
capturing prey and defending themselves against predators. They are didermic animals: the ectoderm and endoderm are
composed of single layer of epithelium, and a gelatinous mesoglea fills the space between two germ layers.
3. Phylum Platyhelminthes (flatworms)
 Body flattened, leaf or ribbon like, bilaterally symmetrical
 Digestive attract branched and without an anus, or absent in parasitic forms.
Three classes:
a. Class tubellaria (free-living flatworms)
b. Class Trematoda (flukes)
c. Class Cestoda (tapeworms)
4. Phylum Nematoda (Nematodes)
 a large phylum of worms, often called round worms or thread worms
 Free living in soil or water, with many parasitic forms on plants and animals, including hookworms (Necator and
Ancylostoma), pinworms Enterobius, human ascaris Ascaris lumbricoides and trichinosis worm Trichnella
 These worms are long, slender, smooth bodied, and tapered at both ends.
 These worms can cause a disease called trichinosis by eating undercooked meat (especially meat) containing
microscopic cyst of larval Trichinella spirallis
 Elephantiasis is caused by minute filarial worms of the genus Wuchereria that invade lymphatic vessels
5. Phylum Annelida (segmented worms)
 Body elongated and composed of many segments, each segment with fine bristle-like setae for locomotion.
Three classes:
a. Class Polychaeta (clamworms)
b. Class Oligochaeta
c. Class Hirudinea
6. Phylum Mollusca (mollusks)
 They are soft-bodied animals.
 Body soft with bilateral symmetry, often covered by a mantle that secretes a calcerous shell.
 Usually with an anterior head and ventral muscular foot for locomotion
Classes of Mollusks
a. Class Amphineura (chitons)
b. Class Scaphopoda (tooth shells)
c. Class Gastropoda (univalve mollusks including snails &limpets)
d. Class Pelecypoda (bivalve mollusks)
e. Class Cephalopoda (octopus & squid)
7. Phylum Anthropoda (Anthropods)
 Body composed of head, thorax and abdomen with three or more pairs of jointed legs
 Chitinous exoskeleton covering all the body parts, molted at intervals
Classes of Anthropoda:
a. Class Onychopora (walking worms)
b. Class Crustacea (shrimp, crabs &barnacles)
c. Class insecta (insects)
d. Class Chilopoda (centipedes)
e. Class Diplopoda (millipedes)
f. Class Arachnida (spiders & ticks)
g. Class Merostomata (horseshoe crab)
8. Phylum Echinodermata (Echinoderms)
 Body radially symmetrical, usually 5-parted around an oral-aboral axis; body wall with calcerous plates, often with
external spines
 Coelem includes water vascular system and external tube feet for locomotion
Classes of Echinodermata:
a. Class Crinoidea (sea lilies)
b. Class Asteroidea (starfish)
c. Class Ophiurodea (brittle stars)
d. Class Echinoidea (sea urchins & sand dollars)
e. Class Holothuroidea (sea cucumbers)
9. Phylum Chordata
Chordates are divided into two distinct groups: the invertebrate chordates and the vertebrate chordates.

1. Invertebrate Chordates:
-are the chordates whose notochords remain during the entire life of the organisms. These are two distinct groups:
Cephalochordate and tunicata.
 Cephalochordate – is represented by the lancelet or amphioxus, a chordate with a fishlike appearance.
 Tunicata – is an unusual chordate that lives attached to the seabed
2. Vertebrate Chordates:
General Characteristics of Vertebrates
Vertebrates have all the chordates features as well as in internal body framework (endoskeleton) consisting of the
following:
1. A body consisting of a head and trunk and in some animals, a neck and tall region.
2. Eyes, ears, and nostrils on the head.
3. Cranial and spinal nerves in most vertebrates.
4. Spine or vertebral column which is composed of bony segments called the vertebrae.
5. A close circulatory system that includes ventral hearts at the anterior part of the body.
6. Blood with red corpuscles containing haemoglobin.
7. Digestive tract or tube with a liver and pancreas.
8. An interior pectoral girdle.
9. Upper and lower limbs; front or hind limbs in form of fins, legs, wings, or flippers.

Classes of Vertebrates
Class Cyclostomata or Agnatha
 Class Cyclostomata includes the jawless fish. This represented by the lampreys, an eel-shaped jawlish fish
that considered as the vampire of the ocean.
Class Chondrichthyes
 The fish with cartilaginous endoskeleton.
Class Osteichthyes
 The class of the bony fishes.
Class Amphibians
 It is named because of their life cycle, the larval part of the life the amphibians is spent in water and the
adult part is spent on land. Frogs, salamander and toads represents this class.
Class Reptilia
 Reptiles have bodies covered with dry, cornified scales. Their eggs are covered with leathery shells.
Crocodiles, turtles, snakes and lizards represent this class.
Class Aves
 Aves have bodies covered with feathers, scaly feet that are adapted to the kind of environment they live,
wings that are adapted for flight, and beaks that are adapted to the kind of foot they eat.
Class Mammalia
 The presence of breast is a distinguishing feature of mammals. The breast that are well developed in
female secrete milk and, therefore, used for feeding the young.
 Three subclasses of mammals:
1. Monotremata
o Egg laying mammals.
2. Marsupials
o Pouched mammals.
3. Placental Mammals
o This animals consist of placenta where the young nourished as it undergoes development until birth.

Placental mammals divided into different orders with their characteristics:

Order Characteristics
Rodentia Presence of sharp, chisel-like teeth which the animal uses
in gnawing food.

Insectivora The presence of a long snout, which the animal uses in

devouring insects.
Order Lagomorpha Presence of chisel like incisors and hind legs modified for
jumping
Order Perissodactyla Presence of odd-toed hoofs
Order Antidactyla Presence of even toed hoofs
Order Proboscidae Presence of a long, muscular trunks, loose skin .

Order Chiroptera Forelimbs are modified into wings

Order Edentata The body is covered with hard, bony plates. They have
reduce teeth or toothless.
Order Cetacea Forelimbs are modified into fins; hind legs are lacking

Order Carnivora Flesh-eating animals

Order Primates These are the primates with superior brain development,
well-developed arms and hands, and which can stand and
walk erect