Question: do animals bodies work in the same way as humans and do any animals have special organs that helps them live

Hazel Gibson answered on 15 Mar 2018:

Good question! Firstly I would say that animals is too big a group for them all to work in the same way as human bodies do, though there sure are a lot of similarities. If you think back to your taxonomy classes – animals are a Kingdom rank and include all creatures that eat organic food, breathe oxygen, can move and reproduce sexually – so that’s a lot of organisms, some of which seem nothing like us at all!!! But we do have those things in common, so the parts of our bodies that rely on those things will be very similar. As we move down the taxonomic ranks the creatures in those groups from the phylum chordata (who have a central spine) to the class of mammals (animals that give birth to live young and feed them milk at birth) get more and more similar to us physically, until we reach out closest relatives, but remember we are all the same amount of evolved – it’s like your cousins. All your cousins are the same generation, just some are older than others. Sharks and humans have been evolving for the same period of time, its just that sharks haven’t mutated into a new species as recently as we have. Their mutations weren’t enough to change them into a new species.

Animals, because they include so many different taxonomic groups, have a whole range of organs that are different to us that help them live; like venom glands for snakes and swim bladders for fish – but my favourite animal adaptation has to be in the female anglerfish, which has a special glowing organ called an esca at the end of a specialised fin. This esca lights up and lures other fish and organisms to their doom (aka to be the anglerfish’s lunch)!! Also I particularly mention female anglerfish, because as a species they are sexually dimorphic – the males are very, very physically different to the female, particularly in one species – the sea devils (Ceratidae), as in, they are tiny!! In fact for a long time scientists couldn’t find the males, but they thought that the females suffered from parasites a lot – turned out the males -were- the parasites!! So they don’t have an esca. Only the female sea devils. Sorry guys.