The Six Kingdoms

The Six Kingdoms

 

Hello again and welcome to The Scientific Waffle. This time we'll be talking about the six kingdoms of life. The six kingdoms are kind of like a classification system. The system classifies all living organisms into six categories. Aristotle, a Greek philosopher, divided all living things into two categories. These two categories were animals and plants. He divided animals further by physical traits and habitat. This system was built upon until it became today's system. Over the years, scientists have learned that appearances can be misleading. In the 20th century they started to classify life by phylogeny, or how organisms are related through evolution.
 

Now let's talk about the animal kingdom. Animals, like the ones you see in pictures, outside, and sometimes in your house if you have a pet, are all multi-cellular organisms. This means they are composed of multiple cells instead of one. Animals also tend to move around, while some are sessile, meaning they do not move around. One example of a sessile animal is coral, which looks like a colored, oddly-shaped rock.

Next up is the plant kingdom. The plant kingdom is composed of multi-cellular organisms that make their own food through a process call photosynthesis. When sunlight hits the plant's leaves, it merges with the carbon dioxide that they breathe in and it makes food. This is photosynthesis. Plants also have hard cell walls instead of cell membranes.

 

After the plant kingdom is the fungi kingdom. Things like mushrooms and toadstools are fungi. Fungi don't make their own food like plants, instead they use their root-like hyphae to suck up nutrients from other organisms. They are seen many times on dead animals and plants, decomposing the carcasses.

 

Now for the bacteria kingdom. Bacteria are prokaryotic organisms, meaning they have no nucleus. Lots of people think that all bacteria are pathogenic, or they can make you sick, but in reality most bacteria are not pathogenic. Bacteria also come in many different shapes, including spheres, rods, and spirals. Some bacteria help you, like the ones in your intestines that break down food.

 

Kingdom number five is the archea kingdom. Archea are prokaryotic, just like bacteria. They are also some of the oldest life forms on earth and can survive in extreme environments. Archea were discovered in the 1970's.

 

The last kingdom is the protist kingdom. Protists are mostly single-celled microscopic organisms. Different from archea and bacteria, protists have nuclei. Some protists capture food, while some make their own food with photosynthesis. Some even do both!

 

Fun facts:

• Scientists used to think that fungi were plants, but then discovered they were drastically different.
• Protists include any microscopic life form that is not an animal, plant, bacteria or fungus.
• The six kingdoms are divided into two groups: prokaryotes and eukaryotes.

Links:
Six Kingdoms Site
Prokaryotes & Eukaryotes