• Question: why are there so many species of the animals??

    Asked by poppxx to Mike, Pip, Tianfu, Tim, Tom on 26 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Tom Lister

      Tom Lister answered on 26 Jun 2012:

      There are the ones which feed from plants, lichen etc- loads of these because of all the different plants and al of the different bits of plants that can be eaten. They are also constantly changing to keep up with evolving plant defences as well as their environment.

      Then you have other animals which catch and eat these, plus animals to catch and eat those animals etc. Then the animals which feed off dead animals.

      Then there is competition within species, which encourages things like giraffes very long necks or huge horns on deer.

      And loads of other factors

      I would argue, after thinking about these things, ‘why are we all so similar?’ At a cellular level, it’s not easy to tell the difference between a human, a mushroom or a fish.

    • Photo: Tim Stephens

      Tim Stephens answered on 26 Jun 2012:

      It’s all to do with evolution. Some creatures became successful by living in a particular habitat, and others became successful by eating certain foods. As they all got better adapted to wherever they were living, different species evolved.

Comments