Animal Classification Quotes

ZOOLOGY, n. The science and history of the animal kingdom, including its king, the House Fly ("Musca maledicta"). The father of Zoology was Aristotle, as is universally conceded, but the name of its mother has not come down to us.

Feathers predate birds.

The representations of all the animals being brought before Adam in the first instance and subsequently of their being collected in the ark... are zoologically impossible.

There are five kinds of great apes: bonobos, chimpanzees, orangutans, gorillas, and the one which people always think of last: Humans!

as to fix the moment that the embryo becomes an animal.

FROG, n. A reptile with edible legs

We all love animals. Why do we call some 'pets' and others 'dinner?'

Man is and remains an animal.Here a beast of prey, there a housepet, but always an animal.

Aristotle maintains that the neck of the Lion is composed of a single bone. Aristotle knew nothing at all about Lions, a circumstance which did not prevent him from writing a good deal on the subject.

When I see a bird that walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck.

On those remote pages [of 'a certain Chinese encyclopedia'] it is written that animals are divided into (a) those that belong to the Emperor, (b) embalmed ones, (c) those that are trained, (d) suckling pigs, (e) mermaids, (f ) fabulous ones, (g) stray dogs, (h) those that are included in this classification, (i) those that tremble as if they were mad, (j) innumerable ones, (k) those drawn with a very fine camel's hair brush, (l) others, (m) those that have just broken a flower vase, (n) those that resemble flies from a distance.

You wouldn't consider all the bipeds you pass on the street human beings simply because they walk upright and carry their young in their bellies nine months! It is obvious how many of them are fish or sheep, worms or angels, how many are ants, how many are bees!

Some people are uncomfortable with the idea that humans belong to the same class of animals as cats and cows and raccoons. They're like the people who become successful and then don't want to be reminded of the old neighborhood.

As for the dinosaur - Noah's conscience was easy; it was not named in his cargo list and he and the boys were not aware that there was such a creature. He said he could not blame himself for not knowing about the dinosaur, because it was an American animal and America had not then been discovered.

Is a hippopotamus a hippopotamus, or just a really cool Opotamus?

Embryology furnishes, also, the best measure of true affinities existing between animals.

Be able to identify the most common breeds of dogs and cats on sight.

The "hairy quadruped furnished with a tail and, pointed ears, probably arboreal in his habits," this good fellow carried hidden in his nature, apparently, something destined to develop into a necessity for humane letters.

A goat's a goat. Whether you sauté or barbeque it, it's still a goat.

Zoology, eh? That's a big word, isn't it." "No, actually it isn't," said Tiffany. "Patronizing is a big word. Zoology is really quite short.

Some kinds of animals burrow in the ground; others do not. Some animals are nocturnal, as the owl and the bat; others use the hours of daylight. There are tame animals and wild animals. Man and the mule are always tame; the leopard and the wolf are invariably wild, and others, as the elephant, are easily tamed.

I was in a sushi bar and it dawned on me - how could I discriminate between a cow and a fish?

We're one of the only animals in the world that don't really think of ourselves as animals, but we are animals, and we must respect our fellow animals.

All animals are minor variations on a very particular theme.

I have lately examined water, in which beaten pepper was steeped, and found two sorts of animals for shape, and each of those sorts to contain greater and smaller kinds: the greater I supposed the elder, the less the younger.