INTRODUCTION TO

GENERAL ZOOLOGY
Prepared by: Dept. of Biology, UE - Manila
 SCIENCE

– systematized body of knowledge that has been

tested, proven and verified.

BIOLOGY – science of life

2 Forms Of Living Things: Plants and Animals

2 Main Fields Of Biology:

•BOTANY – science that deals with the study of plants

•ZOOLOGY
– Science That Deals With The Study Of Animals
Zoology
The study of animals
Most zoologists specialize
◦ Subdisciplines (Tables 1.1 and 1.2)
 FOUR UNIFYING THEMES OF BIOLOGY

1.All living things share a genetic blueprint – DNA

2.All living things are made up of cells

3.All living things have a common evolutionary forces that will

affect change in form, structure, functions and habitat.

4.All living things share the same environment.

 THEORIES IN THE ORIGIN OF LIFE

Creationism
- all the different forms of life that occur today on planet earth have been
created by God, the almighty.
- was purely a religious concept, acceptable only on the basis of faith. It
has no scientific basis.
THEORIES IN THE ORIGIN OF LIFE

Spontaneous generation
- assumed that living organisms could arise suddenly and
spontaneously from any kind of non-living matter.
- was disapproved, as scientists gave definite proof that life comes
from pre-existing life.
THEORIES IN THE ORIGIN OF LIFE

Pasteur’s Experiment

Broth free of Curved Broth is teeming

Broth is microorganis neck is with
boiled ms for a year removed microorganisms

Biogenesis
- Living things came from pre-existing living molecules
 Manifestations of Life / Attributes of Living Things

• Organization
• Movement / contractility
• Excitability

- Stimulus
types:
thermal, impact, acoustic, photic

- Response
types:
negative, positive

•Growth and development

Manifestations of Life / Attributes of Living Things

Organisms Sense and Respond to Change

Organisms sense and respond to change to keep conditions in their internal

environment within a range that favors cell survival (homeostasis)

Homeostasis
◦ Set of processes by which an organism keeps its internal conditions within
tolerable ranges

Receptor
◦ Molecule or structure that responds to a stimulus
Manifestations of Life / Attributes of Living Things

Organisms Grow, Develop and Reproduce

Organisms grow, develop, and reproduce based on information

encoded in DNA, which they inherit from their parents

Growth
◦ Increase in size, volume, and number of cells in multicelled species

Development
◦ Multistep process by which the first cell of a new individual
becomes a multicelled adult
Manifestations of Life / Attributes of Living Things

• Metabolism
2 types:

a) Anabolism
o Forms more complex substances from simpler ones
o Concerned with storage of energy
e.g. assimilation – the food that we eat become a part of the cell

b) Catabolism
o breaks down complex substances to form simpler ones
o concerned with energy expenditure
e.g. cellular respiration

• Reproduction
2 types:
o Asexual
e.g. fission, budding, fragmentation
o Sexual
Manifestations of Life / Attributes of Living Things

Organisms Grow, Develop and Reproduce

Reproduction
◦ Process by which parents produce offspring

Inheritance
◦ Transmission of DNA from parents to offspring

DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid)

◦ Molecule that carries hereditary information about traits
Manifestations of Life / Attributes of Living Things

• Conductivity

• Adaptation
ways:
- protection : offense, defense , escape and avoidance
- procurement
- reproduction

causes of maladjustment
- physical and chemical defects of the body – heredity
e.g. albinism – absence of pigments
color blindness (se – linked traits)
- absence of adjustors
- change is too severe
Differences Between Living and Non- Living things

ATTRIBUTES LIVING THINGS NON-LIVING THINGS

organization Composed of cells Homogeneous

movement / locomotion Motile / locomotory Non-motile

irritability Highly irritable Not irritable

growth Intersception Accretion
(growth is internal(growth is external)
through increase in the
number of cells)

metabolism exhibit Do not exhibit

Eukaryotes
Plant
◦ Typically a multi-celled, photosynthetic producer

Animal
◦ Multi-celled consumer that develops through a series
of embryonic stages and moves about during all or
part of the life cycle
 Differences Between Plants and Animals
ATTRIBUTES PLANTS ANIMALS
organization Composed of cells enclosed Composed of cells
by cell membrane and cell wall enclosed by cell
membrane only
Movement/ Do not move Highly locomotory
locomotion because of well-
developed muscles
irritability Low degree Highly irritable due to the
presence of sensory
receptors/sense organs
growth Continuous but not Terminal but
proportionate proportionate
nutrition autotrophic heterotrophic
gas exchange Excrete oxygen utilized by Excrete carbon dioxide
animals during respiration utilized by plants during
photosynthesis
 SCIENTIFIC METHOD
– set of procedures designed to solve a problem

1.Observation
- real – authentic
- capable of being repeated
- consistency in cause and effect
- understandable
2. Identification of problem
3. Gather relevant data / materials
4. Formulation of hypothesis / hypotheses
5. Experimentation – testing
independent variable – parameter being tested
dependent variable – parameter being measured
6. Conclusion
LIMITATIONS OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD
1. Pseudoscience

2. Cannot make moral judgment

3. Cannot make value judgment

4. Cannot prove the existence of God

 The Scope and Limits of Science

Science is a way of looking at the natural world which helps us to

communicate our experiences without bias by focusing only on
testable ideas about observable phenomena

◦ Science does not address the supernatural

Science
◦ The systematc study of nature
 How Science Works

Researchers make and test potentially falsifiable predictions

about how the natural world works

Generally, scientific inquiry involves forming a hypothesis

(testable assumption) about an observation then making and
testing predictions based on the hypothesis

A hypothesis that is not consistent with the results of scientific

tests is modified or discarded
 Common Research Practices

1. Observe some aspect of nature

2. Frame a question about your observation

3. Propose a hypothesis
(a testable explanation of the observation)
 Common Research Practices

4. Make a prediction – a statement based on a hypothesis,

about some condition that should exist if the hypothesis
is not wrong

5. Test the accuracy of the prediction by experiments or

gathering information (tests may be performed on a
model)
 Common Research Practices

6. Assess the results of the tests (data) to see if they

support or disprove the hypothesis

7. Conclusions: Report all steps of your work and

conclusions to the scientific community
Making Observations:
A Field Study
 A Scientific Theory

Scientific theory
◦ A hypothesis that has not been disproven after many
years of rigorous testing
◦ Useful for making predictions about other phenomena
 Laws of Nature

Law of nature
◦ Generalization that describes a consistent and universal
natural phenomenon for which we do not yet have a
complete scientific information
◦ Example: gravity
 The Power of Experiments

Natural processes are often influenced by many

interacting variables

Variable
◦ A characteristic or event that differs among individuals
 The Power of Experiments

Experiments simplify interpretations of complex biological

systems by focusing on the effect of one variable at a time

Experiment
◦ A test to support or falsify a prediction
 Experimental and Control Groups

Experimental group
◦ A group of objects or individuals that display or are
exposed to a variable under investigation

Control group
◦ A group of objects or individuals that is identical to an
experimental group except for one variable
Potato Chips and
Stomach aches
Hypothesis
Olestra® causes intestinal cramps. Potato Chips and
Stomach aches
Prediction
People who eat potato chips made with Olestra will be more
likely to get intestinal cramps than those who eat potato
chips made without Olestra

Experiment Control Group Experimental Group

Eats regular Eats Olestra
potato chips potato chips

Results 93 of 529 people 89 of 563 people get

get cramps later cramps later
(17.6%) (15.8%)

Conclusion
Percentages are about equal. People who eat potato chips
made with Olestra are just as likely to get intestinal cramps
as those who eat potato chips made without Olestra.
These results do not support the hypothesis.
 Example: Butterflies and Birds
Question
◦ Why does a peacock butterfly flick its wings?

Two hypotheses
◦ Exposing wing spots scares off predators
◦ Wing sounds scare off predators

Two predictions
◦ Individuals without spots are eaten more often
◦ Individuals without sounds are eaten more often
Peacock Butterfly Defenses
 Experiments and Results

Four groups of butterflies were exposed to predators (birds)

◦ Butterflies without spots
◦ Butterflies without sounds
◦ Butterflies without spots or sounds
◦ Control group

Test results support both original hypotheses

 Results:
Peacock Butterfly Experiment
References:
• Biology Today and Tomorrow by Starr, Evers and Starr
• Zoology by Stephen A. Miller and John P. Harley