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What are the characteristics of living things?

Class 6 ScienceNCERT chapter: Living Creatures: Exploring their Characteristicsइसे हिंदी में पढ़ें

Exam-ready answer

Living things show a set of common characteristics. They need food and water, respire, grow, respond to changes around them (stimuli), remove wastes from the body (excretion), reproduce their own kind and show movement. Each living thing also has a life span and passes through a life cycle. Non-living things do not show all these features together.

Explanation

To decide whether something is living, we check it for a whole set of features, not just one. A moving car or a flickering candle flame may seem alive, but neither eats, respires, reproduces or responds to a touch. A dog, a mango tree or an ant shows all the features together. Plants move too, though slowly: their shoots bend towards light and the leaves of chhui-mui (touch-me-not) fold when touched.

Food gives living things the energy to grow and do work; plants make their own food, while animals depend on plants or other animals. All living things respire. Animals breathe in air, and plants exchange gases through tiny pores in their leaves. Body processes produce wastes that must be removed, and this removal is called excretion; in humans, sweat and urine carry wastes out of the body.

Living things reproduce to make more of their own kind: hens lay eggs, cats give birth to kittens and new plants grow from seeds. Each organism also has a life cycle. A frog begins as an egg, hatches into a tadpole and slowly changes into an adult frog. A dry seed looks non-living, but when it gets water, air and warmth it germinates into a seedling, showing that it was alive all along.

Points to remember

  1. Living things need food and water to get energy and to grow.
  2. Respiration: living things take in oxygen and give out carbon dioxide; animals breathe, plants exchange gases through their leaves.
  3. Living things respond to stimuli such as touch, light, heat or sound — chhui-mui leaves fold when touched.
  4. Excretion is the removal of wastes from the body; reproduction is producing young ones of the same kind.
  5. Every living thing grows, has a life span and passes through a life cycle (egg → tadpole → frog; seed → seedling → plant).

Exam tip

Write at least six characteristics as separate points and give one everyday example with each, such as a seed germinating for growth or chhui-mui leaves folding for response to stimuli.

Questions students also ask

Is a seed living or non-living?
A seed is living. It stays inactive while it is dry, but when it gets water, air and suitable warmth it germinates and grows into a seedling. Only something alive can grow and develop like this, so a seed is a living thing in a resting state.
Is fire a living thing because it grows and moves?
No. Fire can spread and flicker, but it does not take food, does not reproduce its own kind, does not respond to stimuli and has no life cycle. Something is called living only when it shows the characteristics of life together.
Do plants respond to stimuli?
Yes. The leaves of the chhui-mui (touch-me-not) plant fold when touched, and the shoot of a potted plant kept near a window bends towards sunlight. Plants respond slowly, so their responses are less easy to notice than those of animals.

Chapter labels help you find the topic in your textbook. Check your own edition: chapter names and order can change. These are Know.it explanations, not official NCERT solutions.