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Organism. An organism is defined in a medical dictionary as any living thing that functions as an individual. [1] Such a definition raises more problems than it solves, not least because the concept of an individual is also difficult. Many criteria, few of them widely accepted, have been proposed to define what an organism is.
Over 1.5 million living animal species have been described, of which around 1.05 million are insects, over 85,000 are molluscs, and around 65,000 are vertebrates. It has been estimated there are as many as 7.77 million animal species on Earth. Animal body lengths range from 8.5 μm (0.00033 in) to 33.6 m (110 ft).
In genetics, the phenotype (from Ancient Greek φαίνω (phaínō) 'to appear, show' and τύπος (túpos) 'mark, type') is the set of observable characteristics or traits of an organism. [1][2] The term covers the organism's morphology (physical form and structure), its developmental processes, its biochemical and physiological properties ...
A domain contains one or more kingdoms. Intermediate minor rankings are not shown. In biology, a kingdom is the second highest taxonomic rank, just below domain. Kingdoms are divided into smaller groups called phyla (singular phylum). Traditionally, some textbooks from the United States and Canada used a system of six kingdoms (Animalia ...
v. t. e. In biology, taxonomy (from Ancient Greek τάξις (taxis) 'arrangement' and -νομία (-nomia) ' method ') is the scientific study of naming, defining (circumscribing) and classifying groups of biological organisms based on shared characteristics. Organisms are grouped into taxa (singular: taxon) and these groups are given a ...
In biology, taxonomic rank is the relative level of a group of organisms (a taxon) in an ancestral or hereditary hierarchy. A common system of biological classification (taxonomy) consists of species, genus, family, order, class, phylum, kingdom, and domain. While older approaches to taxonomic classification were phenomenological, forming ...
Eukaryotes are organisms that range from microscopic single cells, such as picozoans under 3 micrometres across, [6] to animals like the blue whale, weighing up to 190 tonnes and measuring up to 33.6 metres (110 ft) long, [7] or plants like the coast redwood, up to 120 metres (390 ft) tall. [8]
Thus, different cells can have very different physical characteristics despite having the same genome. Morphogenesis, or the development of body form, is the result of spatial differences in gene expression. [81] A small fraction of the genes in an organism's genome called the developmental-genetic toolkit control the development of that organism.