Given below is a diagram representing a stage during the mitotic cell division. Study the diagram and answer the following questions: Given below is a diagram representing a stage during the mitotic cell division. Study the diagram and answer the following questions:
Is it a plant or an animal cell? Give a reason to support your answer.
Topic: Plant or animal cell
Answer
It is an ANIMAL CELL.
Reason: the cell has NO CELL WALL — its outline is a flexible membrane and the cell is rounded — and CENTRIOLES with radiating ASTERS are present at the two poles. Higher plant cells have a rigid rectangular cell wall and possess no centrioles or asters.
Give TWO pieces of evidence if you can — the absence of a cell wall and the presence of centrioles and asters. Either alone is acceptable, but both together make the answer certain.
THE TWO DIFFERENCES between plant and animal mitosis worth holding: ANIMAL cells have CENTRIOLES and form ASTERS; higher plants have neither, though they still build a spindle CYTOKINESIS differs — a CELL PLATE forms from the centre outwards in a plant, while an animal cell is pinched by a FURROW from the periphery inwards
The reason for the second is worth a line: you cannot pinch a rigid box in half, so a plant must build a new partition from the middle instead.