im Currently writing a story about a government led by animals (for a children's story). My husband told me that an animal government would not be able to include insects, fish or birds because they are technically not animals. Even though hes being pedantic he is kind of right. This leaves me with a few options 1) my animal government includes insects/fish/birds and arachnids inclusively and uses the term Animal as a general umbrella term 2) the government only includes "land animals" and fish/birds etc have their own governments (this is my least favourite idea!) 3)the animal government includes departments such as bird secretary, insect secretary, fish secretary etc in the cabinet in the same way as you might have Scotish/Welsh/n.ireland secretary. I should point out the human government exists (even though they are technically animals Too)
Your husband is wrong...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal Animals can be divided broadly into vertebrates and invertebrates. Vertebrates have a backbone or spine (vertebral column), and amount to less than five percent of all described animal species. They include fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. The remaining animals are the invertebrates, which lack a backbone. These include molluscs (clams, oysters, octopuses, squid, snails); arthropods (millipedes, centipedes, insects, spiders, scorpions, crabs, lobsters, shrimp); annelids (earthworms, leeches), cnidarians (jellyfish, sea anemones, corals), and sponges.
Uhm... yeah. Animals are eukaryotic multicellular organisms that uses collagen to bind their cells together. That's anything that's not a plant, fungus, or single cellular.