Question

On what basis are plants and animals put into different categories?

Answer 1

Plants and animals differ in many features such as the absence of chloroplasts, presence of cell wall, etc. But, locomotion is considered as the characteristic feature that separates animals from plants. This is because the absence of locomotion in plants gave rise to many structural changes such as the presence of a cell wall (for protection), the presence of chloroplasts (for photosynthesis) etc. Hence, locomotion is considered to be the basic characteristic as further differences arose because of this characteristic feature.