List of life forms

This article is about a thing that is living or alive. For The Future Sound of London album, see Lifeforms (album). For other uses, see Lifeform (disambiguation).

A life form or lifeform is an entity or being that is living or alive.[1][2] This is a list of articles that relate to physical, hypothetical, alleged, religious, or fictional life forms.

More than 99 percent of all species, amounting to over five billion species,[3] that ever lived on Earth are estimated to be extinct.[4][5] Estimates on the number of Earth's current species range from 10 million to 14 million,[6] of which about 1.2 million have been documented and over 86 percent have not yet been described.[7]

In process philosophy, objects in the world or universe are layered or tiered in complexity.[8] Living things are difficult to define,[9] but life forms can be considered to be the most complex entities in the arena or environment in which they exist.[10] As in process philosophy, this article brings together in a holistic manner, life forms from the diverse human intuitions found in experiences that include the ethical, religious, philosophical, scientific, and aesthetic.[11]

Scientific and evolutionary categories

Archaea

Bacteria

Eukaryote

Organisms whose cells contain complex structures enclosed within membranes

Non-evolutionary scientific categories

Hypothetical life

Also:

Artificial and engineered

Origin of the universe and life

Encounters with animate beings subject to skepticism

Animate beings subject to skepticism

Folklore, legendary, and mythological

Religious, spiritual, occult, and philosophical

Fictional

See also

Qualities, attributes, and terms

Issues

See also

References

  1. "life form". World English Dictionary. Dictionary.com. 2009.
  2. "life form". Online Oxford Dictionary of English. Oxford University Press. 2005.
  3. Kunin, W.E.; Gaston, Kevin, eds. (31 December 1996). The Biology of Rarity: Causes and consequences of rare—common differences. ISBN 978-0412633805. Retrieved 26 May 2015.
  4. Stearns, Beverly Peterson; Stearns, S. C.; Stearns, Stephen C. (2000). Watching, from the Edge of Extinction. Yale University Press. p. 1921. ISBN 978-0-300-08469-6. Retrieved 2014-12-27.
  5. Novacek, Michael J. (8 November 2014). "Prehistory’s Brilliant Future". New York Times. Retrieved 2014-12-25.
  6. G. Miller; Scott Spoolman (2012). Environmental Science - Biodiversity Is a Crucial Part of the Earth's Natural Capital. Cengage Learning. p. 62. ISBN 1-133-70787-4. Retrieved 2014-12-27.
  7. Mora, C.; Tittensor, D.P.; Adl, S.; Simpson, A.G.; Worm, B. (23 August 2011). "How many species are there on Earth and in the ocean?". PLOS Biology 9: e1001127. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001127. PMC 3160336. PMID 21886479. Retrieved 26 May 2015.
  8. Jeremy R. Hustwit (2007). "Process Philosophy". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. p. 3.d. Rejection of Nominalism.
  9. Mark A. Bedau (1998). "Four Puzzles about Life". Reed College.
  10. Harinder S. Sandhu (2010). "Scientific - Origin of the Universe". LifeAfterDeath.info.
  11. Jeremy R. Hustwit (2007). "Process Philosophy". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. p. 2.a. In Pursuit of a Holistic Worldview.
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