Differentiating Between Cells
There are 4 ways to tell the difference between a plant cell and an animal cell.
- One of the organelles that the plant cell has and the animal cell doesn't is the cell wall. It is a rigid structure that surrounds the cell that gives it support. When you look at the diagrams above, you can tell that diagrams A and D have a rigid structure surrounding the outer part of the cell. This is one of the ways that you can tell that it's a plant cell.
- Another organelle that only the plant cell has is chloroplasts. Chloroplasts help with photosynthesis, which is when a plant cell makes its own food. Since only plants do photosynthesis, you can tell that only plant cells have chloroplasts. You can identify the chloroplasts by looking for a medium sized green organelle that kind of looks like a leaf. You can tell that diagrams A and D have this.
- Both the plant and animal cells have vacuoles, however the plant cell only has one large vacuole, and the animal cell has several small ones. The plant vacuole is generally a light or dark blue. You can see that diagrams A and D have one large blue organelle. That is the plant vacuole, therefore it's a plant cell.
- Another example is that plant cells don't have lysosomes. However, with the diagrams above, it's hard to tell which one of them are the lysosomes.