Top 10 Animals that Humans Need to Survive

The help of several animals contributes to others’ existence, and we don’t think humans are an exception. We can always hear about some species we need to save, but have you ever thought why? The animals play many roles in preserving the survival of human beings and the planet. We got the benefits from the services of these creatures for free! Here we discussed the top ten animals that humans need to survive.

10 Bees

Bee

credit of image: David Elliott on Flickr

 

Bees are the first farmer in the world. There are 20,000 different bees’ species, and almost 4,000 bees contribute to pollination. They have two stomachs -one stomach for eating while the other for storing honey. Humans partially domesticated the bees, which are the only social insect doing like this. They are better known for their stinging, buzzing, and making honey. However, their existence has a vital role in humans.

Communication of these honeybees takes place through dancing. They pollinate about 80 percent of the vegetables and fruits that humans usually consume. What sort of crops? These include berries, broccoli, cantaloupe, apples, asparagus, avocados, soybeans, cucumbers, squash, etc. All the working bees are female.

This hardworking small insect transfer pollen from flower to flower on its daily routes across the world. This process allows humans to depend on trees, plants, and flowers to survive and grow. Mating occurs high in the sky. Combining the digested pollen and nectar produced the milky substance called Royal Jelly. In one day, they can visit 5,000 flowers.

The bee will produce only about five grams in its lifetime. They can’t identify the color red, and they have an oval-shaped head. They live in hives or colonies, and we can divide the hive members into three types, such as queen, workers, drones. The queen bee can survive up to 5 years. It is the only bee that lays an egg and can lay up to 2,000 eggs per day.

Losing bees can affect not only humans but also substantial financial impact too. The honey production industry has an essential role in the world. Climate change, disease, human interaction, and pesticide usage can decrease in bees up to 80 percent in the world’s specific parts. Thus, it offers things that are far more critical than delicious honey. So, the bees are one of the animals that humans need to survive.

9 Plankton

plankton

Plankton is a tiny marine organism. It has a vital role in balancing the ecosystem because it provides food to a vast range of species, from small bivalves to whales. They stay in one place like coral. Additionally, these nonmotile creatures are unable to swim against the sea’s tides and currents. Plankton is of two types zooplankton and phytoplankton, which are weak-swimming animals and tiny plants, respectively.

Why are these microscopic algae more critical in humans life? They cover the energy into oxygen that we can all breathe and distribute this oxygen around the world.

There are more than 50000 different freshwater plankton species in the ocean’s light zone. Both phytoplankton and zooplankton absorb nutrients from the water and energy from the Sun. Additionally, these two ingredients are necessary for the process of photosynthesis.

 Plankton photosynthesis provides half of the earth’s oxygen! While the other half was coming from trees and other plants photosynthesis on land. Phytoplankton has an essential role in space travel because it acts as a food and gas exchange source.

We can find that phytoplankton usually relies on nutrients where phosphate, nitrate, and calcium can thrive. Changes in climate and rising sea temperatures cause severe threats to the population of plankton. Many organisms, such as copepods and diatoms of plankton, can produce oil to keep this species afloat. So, the plankton is also one of the animals that humans need to survive.

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Nature

8 Ants

ants

The ants are pretty spectacular critters encountered in homes and businesses. There are more than 12,000 known species of ant occur around the globe. They also have some unique capabilities. Besides humans, these eusocial insects are the only creatures that will farm other animals.

They are using chemicals known as “pheromones to communicate and cooperate effectively to their fellows. Although they may be tiny, ants can carry fifty times the bodyweight of them. They typically feed upon fungus, nectar, seeds, or insects.

They bring other insects from one plant to another. But we don’t be fooled, and they want the nectar of insects! They can hear only through vibrations in the ground. Ants have two stomachs—one of the abdomens for storing food and one to feed others. Ants dig the tunnels that can aerate the soil, and nutrients can also get into the near plants’ ground and roots. This process helps to make and maintain healthy soil conditions of plants and our food to grow.

Ants help to reduce the chemical fertilizers’ use and the requirement for irrigation. The ants can increase 36 percent of wheat crop yields. But it is true; ants have a vital role in coffee and chocolate production.

They also participate in seed harvesting and seed carrying to their precious nutrient nests, where the plants can grow safely, free from herbivores harm. When they travel long distances with plant seeds, granting the plants to achieve the desired goal of spread over a wide area for less light, nutrition, space, and water competition with other plants.

They can destroy the pest species like fleas, fly and bed bug eggs, nymphs or larvae. Ants consume small fleshy structures on the seeds’ outer surface, called elaiosomes, without harm the plant. They also help the rainforests cleaning up and keep the ecosystems in very much balance. So, they are saving people sometimes, and we need to keep them safe. So, when you encounter an ant, perhaps think twice about the uses of them in next time. 

7 Bats

bats

Bats are one of the insects’ largest consumers. There are over 1200 species worldwide. Almost all species of bat hang upside down. Habitats of bats are trees, caves, and buildings. They also eat various insects such as mosquitoes, which can carry diseases like malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases.

The bats which are eating nectar can also help to pollinate. Additionally, their droppings, called guano, is the most abundant fertilizers which help in dispersal of seed and assisting the plants in growing and staying diverse. Many Bat species provide essential services that include clean water, pollination, disease control, and insect regulation.

A fungal disease like white-nose syndrome afflicts these tiny bats. Due to the bats’ limbs not supporting their weight, they hang upside down when resting. The bats’ group is known as a colony, while the bats’ baby is called a pup. If not controlled, the insects can decimate plant life and crops – mostly the pest type insects.

The scary-seeming vampire has saliva that that could help to treat the victims of stroke. The echolocation is a skill of bat that used to see in the dark. The nocturnal bats can hear the frequencies between 20 Hz and 120,000 Hz. They love to eat insects. They can eat up to six hundred bugs in one hour. 

The largest bat in the world is the giant golden-crowned flying fox, a rare fruit bat, while the smallest bat is Kitti’s hog-nosed bat. But Kitti’s hog-nosed bat informally known as the bumblebee bat. Bats slow down the heart rate, breathing, and other body functions to conserve energy during the hibernation.

Most bats feed upon insects, and some species eat fish, fruit, or even blood! Did you know that the bats are the only mammals capable of fly? Nowadays, habitat loss and deforestation are a threat to these flying mammals. Bats can stay up to 20 years. It has got full right to be here on the list of top ten animals that humans need to survive.

6 Frogs

frogs

 There are over 6000 species of frogs in the world. This fantastic creature is better known for its croaking sounds, jumping abilities, slimy skin, and bulging eyes. The frog’s skin has the capability of absorbing water, so they do not need to drink. They catch their prey using the tongue them.

Frogs used leaping or jumping as a means for evading predators. These carnivores frogs mainly eat insects and other invertebrates. Some species of frog also feed on small animals includes mice, birds, and snakes. They also make vocalizations that typically function as mating calls. 

Some of these amphibians have a bright-colored body to warn their predators that they are poisonous. Frogs have very excellent eyesight and a good sense of hearing. Frogs use the legs of them to dig or burrow underground for hibernating. They act as bio-indicators.

The frog’s porous and permeable skin can absorb substance present in the environment or surrounding habitat within their fatty tissues. They can live both terrestrially and aquatically. Also, they can indicate contamination or other issues for both habitats. 

Since these miraculous frogs will be the first animals to react to any biological hazards, they benefit from warning signs for humans to take action. They conclusively show the health of different ecosystems.

Nowadays, the extinction of frog species is at risk because of infectious diseases such as chytridiomycosis and habitat destruction. Though frogs not as effective as bats, they do help in the control of insects. These short-bodied, tailless amphibians act as a food source for many carnivorous species and maintain balanced ecosystems. So, frogs are one of the animals that humans need to survive.

5 Fungi

fungi

We can find these living organisms all over the earth. There are almost 1.5 million species on the planet. Unlike plants, cell walls of fungi are complex and flexible structures made up of chitin. Fungi cannot make their food, and they are eating off hosts of them or decomposing matter. The spores reproduce these fungi.

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Fungi are eukaryotic means that cells of them consist of organelles and a nucleus inside the membrane walls. People sometimes used fungi such as Mushrooms and truffles for food. Fungi divided into four groups, including sac fungi, club fungi, molds, and imperfect fungi. Moreover, people used these fungi to make medicine, including antibiotics such as penicillin.

People also used a type of fungi called yeast in baking, which helps them create bread to rise. The fungi allowed the plants to obtain the water and nutrients from the soil around these organisms. The plants cannot absorb these crucial components of life directly into their roots. Fungi are also nature’s leading nutrient recyclers.

They decompose the remnants of dead plants and animals and return the nutrients to nature and reuse them. The fungi’s fruiting body is freeing spores that infect insects and grow through exoskeletons or even suffocating them. 

Sometimes they make deadly toxins to increase the speed of the process. Thus, they control pests. Modern medicine also depends on fungi. People even used fungi to treat cancer. The tinctures of the mushroom fungi could protect the immune system of the bees from the virus.

Some species can capture and keep the carbon in the soil, extracting it from the air. However, fungi have a vital role in the health of health. We know that without fungi, we can’t see healthy soil, and without healthy soil, we can’t see happy trees. And then without trees that affect the survival of humans. It also holds a position in the list of top ten animals that humans need to survive.

4 Fish

fish

 

Every people may like to eat fish, or even keep them as pets in the aquarium. There are more than 30,000 different kinds of fish. Fish live as well as breaths in water. Fish species are cold-blooded, which means their internal body temperature changes as the surrounding changes. Additionally, they have excellent senses of touch, sight, taste, and some species possess a unique understanding of hearing and smell.

These vertebrates fish protect themselves from their enemies is to blend in, or camouflage, with their environment. Fish provide an essential food source, but they also help clean up the oceans and fight against climate change.

Fish feed upon fish eggs, mollusks, other fish, aquatic plants, algae, water birds, turtles, zooplankton, terrestrial insects, frogs, snakes, and mice. In some species, the females and males have bodies with a different shape or different coloring; in other species, we can’t find a visible difference. The fish may help to reduce climate change impacts with their excrement.

The excrement of fish can significantly reduce the oceans’ acidity. In maintaining an ocean’s delicate pH balance, the waste of fish floats to the water surface and ultimately dissolves. So they create carbon dioxide that helps to form the ocean’s acidity. Overfishing and habitat destructions are the biggest threats to them. Thus, it holds a position in one of the animals that humans need to survive.

3 Worms

worms

credit of image: schizoform on Flickr

 

There are over 2700 various types of worm in the world. Worms are cold-blooded and can eat their weight in each day. Scents of the worms used to attract the other worm. Earthworms use the skin of them for breathing and don’t have lungs. They are plowing via the soil and making complex burrow networks.

They create an essential contribution to the land’s fertility and are very important in farmland and gardens. If the skin of a worms dries out, they will die. These worms’ main habitats include tropical rainforests, in the branches of trees, on mountains, and even in nests of birds.

These wriggly, slimy, little worms play a vital role in making fertile soil that helps the plants grow healthy and bear fruit. They are hermaphrodites and possess male and female reproductive organs, but it takes two to reproduce. It has five hearts. It reduces the waste amount sent to landfills.

For many years, people are putting or throwing out the waste straight into the garbage disposal, but today they have started worm composting systems. Besides, a worm composting system’s usage can create excellent fertilizer for our garden and other plants.

These Invertebrate animals also help to cut down on the accumulation of waste. Worms can live the areas such as where they got oxygen, food, moisture, and a favorable temperature. Many animals and plants get their food from the soil, but the worms eat the soil itself. These underground creatures can live up to 4-5 years.

2 Primates Other Than Humans

primates

credit of image: Ryan Summers on Flickr

 

There are over 704 species and subspecies of primates. Extinction is a significant threat. These mammals have forward-facing color vision, fingernails, soft hands and feet, opposable thumbs, and large, highly developed brains.

These primates mainly live in tropical or subtropical regions. Additionally, they have longer lifespans. It is also one of the top ten animals that humans need to survive. Primates divided into four classifications include Great Apes, Lesser Apes, Monkeys, and Prosimians.

 These Social Animals can use the Tools. Like humans, most of the primates give birth to only a single newborn at a time. These omnivorous animals feed upon fruits, leaves, insects, and small lizards. Eagles, jaguars, and even human beings preyed them. All primate species show sexual dimorphism.

 The habitats of these animals support the ecosystem, which all dependent. They are absorbing carbon while releasing oxygen via the process of photosynthesis. Also, they are pumping water into the air via evapotranspiration, which activates the global rainfall patterns.

Moreover, primates’ dung droppings plant the seeds for tomorrow’s trees and keep those forests growing and healthy. Without such ecosystems, we have no permanent carbon source. If there are fewer trees in the rain forests, only a small amount of moisture goes into the atmosphere. So the rainfall is reduced, and also decline the water supplies.

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1 Birds

birds

 There are over 10000 different species of birds in the world. The warm-blooded birds generally have wings, lay eggs, feathers. People kept Many birds as pets, including doves, parakeets, and lovebirds. These vertebrate animals adapted for flight. Many birds can also run, jump, swim, and dive, and it has a unique digestive system. These warm-blooded vertebrates are better known for their ability to fly. It is also one of the animals that humans need to survive.

Every year, around 20% of species of birds migrate long distances. Some birds are intelligent to create and use the tools and have hollow bones that help them fly. Birds perform best in insect control, nutrient recycling, forest decomposition, pollination, seed sowing, bio-indication of ecosystem health, and soil aeration. Birds can keep systems in balance. They also inspire humans with aesthetic magnificence of them.

We cannot imagine a world without the visual and acoustic beauty of these creatures. The world’s smallest living bird is the Bee Hummingbird, with a length of just 2 inches. Moreover, birds used the tail feathers for steering, and they use beaks to swallow food. They do not wish to carry the additional weight of young inside their bodies; they lay the eggs and incubate in a nest. We can find most species of birds are in tropical rain forests. Feathers hide the bird’s total knee. The world’s most significant egg lays in ostrich.