Animal Kingdom Concept Map - An Overview

Animal Kingdom Concept Map - An Overview

Irshad AnwarUpdated on 02 Jul 2025, 05:27 PM IST

Animal Kingdom is a vast and varied collection of animals. One may better understand the connections between various animal species and how animals are connected by creating a mind map/concept map of the animal kingdom. A map showing the relationships between various animals can be made since this complex classification of the animal kingdom is challenging to remember.

This Story also Contains

  1. What Is the Concept Map of the Animal Kingdom?
  2. Concept Map of the Animal Kingdom and Its Benefits
  3. Animal Kingdom Classification
  4. Animal Kingdom Taxonomy
Animal Kingdom Concept Map - An Overview
Concept Map of the Animal Kingdom

The concept map of the animal kingdom makes the entire remembering process easy, as all the common factors are mentioned more easily in the map. This becomes an important tool for remembering important points of the animal kingdom chapter, class 11th biology. This chapter also has good weightage in the different examinations of pharmacy, paramedical, and NEET.

What Is the Concept Map of the Animal Kingdom?

A flowchart that graphically arranges the taxonomy, or the animal kingdom classification basis, systematically, is known as an animal kingdom concept map. With smaller nodes spreading out to symbolise each significant taxonomic group within the Kingdom, it often starts with a huge center node that represents the animal kingdom itself.

This concept map relates to a wide variety of organisms and makes it easy to remember various animals with similar and dissimilar characteristics/features/traits. It serves as a powerful learning tool to understand and remember the structure and traits of various species within the Animal Kingdom.

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Concept Map of the Animal Kingdom and Its Benefits

Concept maps created using the data on animal taxa now accessible are dynamic tools for zoology learning and comprehension. Below is a list of the benefits.

Concepts

Explanation

Species classification

  • The concept map of the animal kingdom helps to locate the species quickly by categorizing them into the Animal Kingdom based on their specific traits.

R.H. Whittaker Map

  • There is a generic division of multicellular animals that makes the entire identification task easy for ecologists, students, and researchers.

Organisational levels

  • It shows how animals are structured from the cellular level up to the organ system level.

Body symmetry

  • Classify the animal into symmetrical, radially symmetrical, and bilaterally symmetrical based on the body alignment.

Germinal layers

  • It shows embryonic layers which define different kinds of diploblastic animals that have two layers that are endoderm and ectoderm.

  • Apart from this, they also have triploblastic layers that are endoderm, mesoderm, and ectoderm.

Coelom

  • This part of the animal kingdom differentiates the animals based on their presence of body cavities.

  • Three basic types are Coelomates( True Cavity), Pseudocoelomates (False Cavity), and Acoelomates ( No Cavity)

Respiratory system

  • It highlights different respiratory structures such as lungs, gills, or airways used by animals for gas exchange.

  • Different animal structures include lungs, Airways, and blood vessels in humans.

Excretory system

  • It describes how animals eliminate waste products through processes like ammonotelism, uricotelism, or guanotelism.

Animal Kingdom Classification

The 11 phyla of the animal kingdom are the major divisions that classify animals on the basis of body structure, complexity, and history of evolution.

Phylum

Description

Porifera

Porous bodies, multicellular animals designated as sponges, which have no proper tissues or organs.

Cnidaria

Aquatic animals exhibiting radial symmetry and possessing specialized stinging cells, the cnidocytes.

Ctenophora

Exclusively marine ciliated comb plates that help in movement and show bioluminescence, meaning they can produce light.

Platyhelminthes

These are the flatworms, which include planarians and tapeworms. The body is dorso-ventrally flat and bilaterally symmetrical with no true coelom.

Aschelminthes

Roundworms with elongated, cylindrical bodies, which vary in habitats and are more often free-living or parasitic.

Annelida

Segmented worms found in earthworms and leeches, annotated for having bodies segmented by a true coelom.

Arthropoda

The largest phylum, including insects, arachnids, and crustaceans are distinguished through having exoskeleton, jointed appendages, and segmented bodies.

Mollusca

A phylum of animals including snails, clams, and octopuses with a soft body often covered with a shell of hard chitinous material and a muscular foot.

Echinodermata

Marine animals such as sea stars and sea urchins are examples of animals that have radial symmetry and an odd water vascular system.

Hemichordata

Marine worms with a stomochord and pharyngeal gill slits; they are the closest relatives to chordates.

Chordata

It includes animals that at some stage of their development have a notochord; an example is vertebrates, including mammals, birds, and fish. Other closely related invertebrates belong to the same class.

Animal Kingdom Taxonomy

Taxonomy in the Animal Kingdom classifies animals on a similar hierarchical basis as follows: phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species. Taxonomy in the animal kingdom categorizes organisms into major phyla, such as Chordata, all vertebrates, and Arthropoda, all invertebrates, truly indicating their evolutionary relationship.

The advances in genetic studies have provided new mileage for Animal kingdom taxonomy. The classifiers can now make more accurate classifications based on the degrees of similarities and dissimilarities among genes as compared to morphological features. An Example of Taxonomy in the Animal Kingdom:

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Chordata

Class

Mammalia

Order

Carnivora

Family

Canidae

Genus

Canis

Species

lupus

Other useful resources:

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Q: List a few benefits of concept maps of the animal kingdom?
A:

The following are some advantages of concept mapping in the animal kingdom:

  • They can help in enhancing comprehension of difficult topics.

  • They may help in enhancing memory for information.

  • They might help in enhancing problem-solving abilities.

  • They may contribute to better information transmission.

Q: What is Concept Map of the Animal Kingdom?
A:

A flowchart that graphically arranges the taxonomy or the animal kingdom classification, systematically is known as an animal kingdom concept map.

Q: What are the different types of circulatory systems seen in animals?
A:

The different types of circulatory systems seen in animals are the open circulatory system and closed circulatory system.

Q: What are the applications of concept maps?
A:

The applications of concept maps are:

  • Designing a curriculum

  • Can be used for revision

  • Used during exams to remember topics

  • Writing down the data.

Q: Is concept mapping an effective teaching strategy?
A:

By creating a visual representation of connections between ideas, the concept mapping approach aids students in understanding the relationships between them. It enables people to incorporate future facts or viewpoints and connect novel concepts to what they currently know.

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