CELL PICTURES: Generalised Animal Cell (Eukaryotic / Eucaryotic cell) diagram with labels

Features full page in colour in THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH, the new international bestseller by Richard Dawkins, author of The Selfish Gene and The God Delusion. This latest book, subtitled THE EVIDENCE FOR EVOLUTION, presents the case for evolution, and the animal cell image illustrates the complexity of intracellular structure.

The image to the right shows all the major structures in a typical (generalised) animal cell (plant cells are somewhat different). A cell is a complete functional biological unit with many different internal structures. Somewhat like an entire city in miniature. It is enclosed by a cell membrane and has a nucleus (shown in purple) in the middle. Cells are the building blocks of our bodies. However, the cells do not all look the same (like the bricks in a house). They are specialised to carry out all sorts of different jobs. For example, we have brain cells and muscle cells, which look quite different and do quite different jobs. Working together all these cells enable us to carry out all of the functions that a complex organism requires.