All Topics  
Terrestrial animal

 

 
   Email Print
   Bookmark   Link
 

 

Terrestrial animal
 
 
  Topics Terrestrial animal Topic Home

Terrestrial animals are animal
Animal

Animals are a major group of multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the Kingdom Animalia or Metazoa. Their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later on in their life....
s that live predominantly or entirely on land, as compared with aquatic animal
Aquatic animal

An aquatic animal is an animal, either vertebrate or invertebrate, which lives in water for most or all of its life.Natural environments and the animals that live in them can be categorized as aquatic or terrestrial ecoregion ....
s, which live predominantly or entirely in the water (e.g., fish
Fish

A fish is any marine biology vertebrate animal that is typically ectothermic , covered with scale , and equipped with two sets of paired fins and several unpaired fins....
, lobster
Lobster

Clawed lobsters compose a family of large marine crustaceans. Lobsters are economically important as seafood, forming the basis of a global industry that nets United States dollar1.8 billion in trade annually....
s, octopus
Octopus

The octopus is a cephalopod of the order Octopoda that inhabits many diverse regions of the ocean, especially coral reefs. The term may also refer to only those creatures in the genus Octopus ....
es), or amphibian
Amphibian

Amphibians , such as frogs, toads, salamanders, newts and caecilians, are cold-blooded animals that metamorphose from a juvenile, water-breathing form to an adult, air-breathing form....
s, which rely on a combination of aquatic and terrestrial habitat
Habitat

The term habitat has a number of meanings:* Habitat , a place where a species lives and grows** Human habitat, a place where humans live, work or play...
s (e.g., frog
Frog

Frogs are amphibians in the order Anura , formerly referred to as Salientia . The name frog derives from Old English language frogga, , cognate with Sanskrit plava , probably deriving from Proto-Indo-European language praw = "to jump"....
s). Terrestrial animals evolved
Evolution

In biology, evolution is change in the heritability trait of a population of organisms from one generation to the next. These changes are caused by a combination of three main processes: variation, reproduction, and selection....
 from marine animals (aquatic animals living in the ocean). The term terrestrial is also frequently used for species that live primarily on the ground, in contrast to arboreal
Arboreal

Arboreal is a word meaning "related to or resembling trees". Its meaning comes from the Latin arbor, meaning tree.In biology, an arboreal animal is one which inhabits or spends large amounts of time in trees or Shrubes....
 species, which live primarily in trees.

estrial animals do not form a unified clade
Clade

A clade is a term used in modern alpha taxonomy, the scientific classification of living and fossil organisms, to describe a monophyletic group, defined as a group consisting of a single common ancestor and all its descendants.The term "monophyletic group" is used in this article in the conventional sense of "an a...
, rather they share only the fact that they live on land.






Discussion
Ask a question about 'Terrestrial animal'
Start a new discussion about 'Terrestrial animal'
Answer questions from other users
Full Discussion Forum



Encyclopedia


Terrestrial animals are animal
Animal

Animals are a major group of multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the Kingdom Animalia or Metazoa. Their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later on in their life....
s that live predominantly or entirely on land, as compared with aquatic animal
Aquatic animal

An aquatic animal is an animal, either vertebrate or invertebrate, which lives in water for most or all of its life.Natural environments and the animals that live in them can be categorized as aquatic or terrestrial ecoregion ....
s, which live predominantly or entirely in the water (e.g., fish
Fish

A fish is any marine biology vertebrate animal that is typically ectothermic , covered with scale , and equipped with two sets of paired fins and several unpaired fins....
, lobster
Lobster

Clawed lobsters compose a family of large marine crustaceans. Lobsters are economically important as seafood, forming the basis of a global industry that nets United States dollar1.8 billion in trade annually....
s, octopus
Octopus

The octopus is a cephalopod of the order Octopoda that inhabits many diverse regions of the ocean, especially coral reefs. The term may also refer to only those creatures in the genus Octopus ....
es), or amphibian
Amphibian

Amphibians , such as frogs, toads, salamanders, newts and caecilians, are cold-blooded animals that metamorphose from a juvenile, water-breathing form to an adult, air-breathing form....
s, which rely on a combination of aquatic and terrestrial habitat
Habitat

The term habitat has a number of meanings:* Habitat , a place where a species lives and grows** Human habitat, a place where humans live, work or play...
s (e.g., frog
Frog

Frogs are amphibians in the order Anura , formerly referred to as Salientia . The name frog derives from Old English language frogga, , cognate with Sanskrit plava , probably deriving from Proto-Indo-European language praw = "to jump"....
s). Terrestrial animals evolved
Evolution

In biology, evolution is change in the heritability trait of a population of organisms from one generation to the next. These changes are caused by a combination of three main processes: variation, reproduction, and selection....
 from marine animals (aquatic animals living in the ocean). The term terrestrial is also frequently used for species that live primarily on the ground, in contrast to arboreal
Arboreal

Arboreal is a word meaning "related to or resembling trees". Its meaning comes from the Latin arbor, meaning tree.In biology, an arboreal animal is one which inhabits or spends large amounts of time in trees or Shrubes....
 species, which live primarily in trees.

Taxonomy

Terrestrial animals do not form a unified clade
Clade

A clade is a term used in modern alpha taxonomy, the scientific classification of living and fossil organisms, to describe a monophyletic group, defined as a group consisting of a single common ancestor and all its descendants.The term "monophyletic group" is used in this article in the conventional sense of "an a...
, rather they share only the fact that they live on land. The transition from an aquatic to terrestrial life has evolved independently and successfully many times by various groups of animals.

When excluding internal parasites, free living species in terrestrial environments are represented by the following ten phyla; Flatworm
Flatworm

The flatworms, known in scientific literature as Platyhelminthes are a Phylum of relatively simple bilaterian, Segmentation , soft-bodied invertebrate animals....
s (Planaria), Nemertea
Nemertea

Nemertea is a phylum of invertebrate animals also known as ribbon worms or proboscis worms. Most of the 1,400 or so species are marine, with a few living in fresh water and a small number of terrestrial animal; they are found in all marine habits, and throughout the world's oceans....
 (ribbon worms), Nematoda (roundworms), Rotifer
Rotifer

The rotifers make up a phylum of microscopic and near-microscopic body cavity animals. They were first described by Rev. John Harris in 1696 and other forms were described by Anton van Leeuwenhoek in 1703....
s, Tardigrada (water bears), Onychophora (velvet worms), Arthropod
Arthropod

Arthropods are animals belonging to the Scientific classification Arthropoda , and include the insects, arachnids, crustaceans, and others....
s, mollusks (gastropods), Annelida and Chordata (tetrapods). The roundworms, tardigrades and rotifers are microscopic animals that requires a film of water to live in, and are not considered truly terrestrial. Flatworms, ribbon worms, velvet worms and annelids all depends on more or less moist habitats, while the three remaining categories, arthropods, gastropods and tetrapods, are the only ones that contain species that have been able to adapt to predominantly dry terrestrial environments.

Difficulties

Labeling an animal species "terrestrial" or "aquatic" is often obscure and becomes a matter of judgment.

Many animals which are considered terrestrial have a life-cycle that is partly dependent on being in water. Penguins, seals
Pinniped

Pinnipeds or fin-footed mammals are a widely distributed and diverse group of semi-aquatic marine mammals comprising the families Odobenidae , Otariidae , and Phocidae ....
 and walruses sleep on land and feed in the ocean, yet they are all considered terrestrial. Many insects and all terrestrial crabs (as well as other clades) have an aquatic life cycle stage: their eggs need to be laid in and to hatch in water. After hatching there is an early aquatic form, either a nymph
Nymph

In Greek mythology, a nymph is any member of a large class of mythological entities in human form. They were typically associated with a particular location or landform....
 or larva
Larva

A larva is a young form of animal with indirect developmental biology, going through or undergoing metamorphosis .The larva can look completely different from the adult form, for example, a caterpillar differs from a butterfly....
.

There are crab species which are completely aquatic, crab species which are amphibious, and crab species which are terrestrial. Fiddler crabs are called “semi-terrestrial” since they make burrows in the muddy substrate to which they retreat during high tides. When the tide is out, fiddler crabs search the beach for food.

The same is true in the Mollusca
Mollusca

MolluscsSpelled mollusk in the USA; the spelling "mollusc" is preferred by some authors, see the reasons given by . are animals belonging to the Phylum Mollusca....
: many hundreds of gastropod genera and species live in intermediate situations, such as for example, Truncatella. Some gastropods with gills live on land, and others with a lung live in the water.

As well as the purely terrestrial and the purely aquatic animals there are many borderline species. There are no universally accepted criteria for deciding how to label these species.

See Also


  • Terrestrial locomotion