animal

The word "animal" comes from the Latin animalis, meaning having breath, having soul or living being.

The blue whale is the largest animal that has ever lived, weighing up to at least 190 tonnes [公吨, 1000kg] and measuring up to 33.6 metres (110 ft) long. The largest extant [现存的 {extinct}] terrestrial [陆生的] animal is the African bush elephant [非洲草原象], weighing up to 12.25 tonnes] and measuring up to 10.67 metres (35.0 ft) long. The largest terrestrial animals that ever lived were titanosaur sauropod dinosaurs [泰坦龙蜥脚类恐龙] such as Argentinosaurus [阿根廷龙], which may have weighed as much as 73 tonnes. Several animals are microscopic; some Myxobolus shekel [谢克尔粘球菌] are no more than 8.5 µm [微米=micrometer=micron] when fully grown.

The first fossils [化石] that might represent animals appear in the 665-million-year-old rocks of the Trezona Formation of South Australia. These fossils are interpreted as most probably being early sponges [海绵].

Many animal phyla first appear in the fossil record during the Cambrian explosion, starting about 542 million years ago, in beds such as the Burgess shale. 百度翻译: 许多动物门首次出现在化石记录中是在大约5.42亿年前开始的寒武纪大爆发期间，在伯吉斯页岩等地层中。

http://a-z-animals.com/reference/animal-classification/
The more features that a group of animals share, the more specific that animal classification group is. Every species is defined based on nine branching categories. The primary method of animal classification is: Domain; Kingdom; Phylum; Class; Order; Suborder; Animal Families; Genus; Species. Primates [灵长目] is an order; Animalia is a kingdom.

In 1758, Carl Linnaeus [林奈] created the first hierarchical classification. Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck [拉马克] led the creation of a modern classification of invertebrates [无脊椎动物], breaking up Linnaeus's "Vermes" into 9 phyla by 1809.

The human population exploits a large number of other animal species for food, both of domesticated livestock species in animal husbandry and, mainly at sea, by hunting wild species. Marine fish of many species are caught commercially for food. A smaller number of species are farmed commercially.

Chickens, cattle, sheep, pigs and other animals are raised as livestock for meat across the world. Animal fibres such as wool are used to make textiles, while animal sinews have been used as lashings and bindings, and leather is widely used to make shoes and other items. Animals have been hunted and farmed for their fur to make items such as coats and hats.

People have used hunting dogs to help chase down and retrieve animals, and birds of prey to catch birds and mammals, while tethered cormorants [栓系鸬鹚lúcí] have been used to catch fish.

六级/考研单词: weigh, extinct, bush, dinosaur, fossil, interpret, probable, sponge, explode, million, domain, hierarchy, exploit, livestock, hunt, marine, cattle, goat, fibre, wool, textile, fur, retrieve, prey, mammal