• Question: why do we have a skeliton

    Asked by lolax to Fiona, Jane, Joanna, Michelle, William on 18 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Joanna Brooks

      Joanna Brooks answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      Hi! We humans have a skeleton to provide a rigid structure for our bodies to give us protection and help us move around. Invertebrates have skeletons outside the body – like flies. Some animals like tortoises have both!

    • Photo: Michelle Murphy

      Michelle Murphy answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      it stops us being a big pile of mush on the floor! We have about 206 bones to protect our organs (mainly heart and brain), give us shape and let us move.

    • Photo: Jane Henry

      Jane Henry answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      We have an internal skeleton, insects have external ones. The solidity enables us to move fast. Darwinians would say this has given species with a skeleton an evolutionary advantage, hence species with skeletons have survived and multiplied. But this does not explain how skeleton’s began developing – the science of how things develop – morphogenesis has a long way to go. It has a story about how eyes, the heart and guts developed, I’m not sure what the skeleton story is, thats if they have one yet. There are plenty of things still waiting to be discovered and understood.

    • Photo: Fiona Randall

      Fiona Randall answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      The skeleton supports our body and protects our more delicate internal organs from damage.

    • Photo: William Davies

      William Davies answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      In terms of evolution, it helped keep us upright so that we could move around easily, could see any predators approaching from a long way away, and could reach the tastiest food from the highest trees. That’s why we are one of the most successful species on the planet

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