Wonders of Living World

Shermila Jayarathna
Content
• Living and non-living things.
• Living organisms (Plants, Animals and
Microorganisms)
• Characteristics of organisms (Growth, Nutrition,
Movement, Respiration and reproduction)
• Differences between plants and animals
• Dichotomous key
Differences between plants and animals

01. Diversity of Plants

 Based on Morphological features

Diversity among leaves

Simple leaves Compound leaves

Diversity among flowers
Diversity among fruits and seeds
Diversity among roots
Based on nature
Based on living environment
Diversity of Animals
Based on mode of locomotion
Based on living environment (Habitat)

Arborial
Terrestrial Aquatic
Based on external characteristics
Based on type of food
• Carnivore
• Omnivore
• Herbivore
Differences between plants and animal
Characteristics of plants Characteristics of animals

Growth ................................

Autotrophic Heterotrophic

Chlorophyll present No chlorophyll

Respiratory movements – do not show They show respiratory movements

Locomotion??
Dichotomous Keys
• Categorization of organisms using the presence or absence of a characteristic
feature is known as a dichotomous key.
• It is more suitable to use external features that can be easily observed.
 Example 1
Dog, Parrot, Cobra

With legs Without legs

Dog, Parrot Cobra

With wings Without wings

Parrot Dog
Steps
1. Divide into two parts
2. Consider a characteristic that you can observe clearly per step.
3. One side write the presence of considered characteristic and on the
other side absence of the same characteristic
4. Keep going until you get only one organism under considered
characteristic.
Example 02-
Example 03
Use a dichotomous key to classify the plants given
below.
Coconut, Jak, Mimosa, Paddy, Ambarella

Use a dichotomous key to classify the animals given

below.
Dog, Elephant, Crow, Cobra, Fish
Summary