Are humans animals?

Dremmer

We're in the Kingdom Animalia, but are we animals? Or does the Animalia Kingdom include humans and animals?

jedishrfu

http://kids.discovery.com/tell-me/an...idered-animals

mfb

Scientific? Sure, see above
Everyday language? Usually not.

Oh, and to avoid a common misconception:
This is wrong. There are multiple ways to classify all living species, but all involve more groups: There are species which are neither animals nor plants. See the graphs and lists at wikipedia for an introduction.

Pythagorean

animals are "metazoa": muilticellular eukaryote creatures with connective tissues. Bacteria and archea are not animals as they are single-celled. Furthermore, animals must be heterotrophic, which means they don't use carbon as part of their digestion process (this excludes plants). Fungi are also heterotrophic, but there's a further distinguishing feature of metazoa: they don't have cell walls. Finally, a cherry on top, animals are mobile: they can move around. I'm not sure how sponges fit into this, so maybe they're an exception, but their look-alike ancestors are also one of the first animals.

Humans conform to all of the classifications of metazoa, so yes, they are animals.

JonMoulton

Dunno about you, Dremmer, but I sure am. And a mammal, and even a primate at that. Woop woop!

Akshay_Anti

just look at basic characterstics common to members of kingdom Animalia. We satisfy all of them...

Rono

Humans are quite anthropocentric, they usually consider themselves as a superior being, but we're biologically animals and should be considered animals at all biological circumstances.