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About this tool
Interactive animal and plant cell diagram explorer with clickable organelles, metabolic functions, and cellular biology breakdowns.
Cell Explorer is a clickable diagram of an animal cell and a plant cell: tap an organelle and it gives you what that structure does plus one concrete fact about it. The animal view covers the nucleus, mitochondria, endoplasmic reticulum, Golgi apparatus, lysosomes and the cell membrane; the plant view swaps in the chloroplast, the central vacuole and a rigid cellulose cell wall. It is built for students learning cytology and for anyone who wants the animal-versus-plant difference shown rather than listed.
Open Cell Explorer on AltFTool — it loads instantly in your browser.
Pick Animal Cell or Plant Cell under Cell Type Selector. Animal draws the Nucleus, Mitochondria, Endoplasmic Reticulum, Golgi Apparatus and Lysosomes inside an oval Cell Membrane; Plant draws the Nucleus, Chloroplast, Central Vacuole and Mitochondria inside a rounded rectangular Cell Wall.
Click a coloured internal organelle on the diagram — the badge over it reads Click any organelle on diagram to inspect function — or choose any structure from the Organelles list on the left. A selected internal organelle gets a white stroke and coloured glow; selecting the Cell Membrane or Cell Wall updates the Metabolic Function and Biological Fact card but does not add a selection effect to the outline. The two outlines are list-only selections.
Read the Educational Principles: Eukaryotic Cells note under the diagram for how the two cell types differ, and press Reset at the top right to return to the Animal Cell with the Nucleus selected.
Clicking a shape gives its job in the cell straight away, so the diagram teaches rather than just labels.
Animal and plant views share the same diagram style, which makes the swapped organelles obvious instead of requiring you to compare two textbook figures.
Each structure comes with a specific detail — mitochondrial DNA is circular and maternally inherited, lysosomes work at an acidic pH — that is easier to recall than a definition.
Plant cells have three structures animal cells lack: a rigid cellulose cell wall outside the membrane, chloroplasts for photosynthesis, and a large central vacuole that can occupy up to 90% of a mature cell's volume. Both have a nucleus, mitochondria, endoplasmic reticulum and Golgi apparatus.
The nucleus holds the DNA and directs protein synthesis; mitochondria make ATP by oxidative phosphorylation; rough ER folds proteins while smooth ER makes lipids; the Golgi apparatus modifies and packages proteins into vesicles; lysosomes digest waste using hydrolytic enzymes at a pH of roughly 4.5 to 5.0.
Mitochondria carry a small circular genome, inherited from the mother, which is the main evidence for the endosymbiotic theory that they descend from free-living bacteria taken up by an ancestral cell. Chloroplasts carry their own DNA for the same reason.
It stores water and nutrients and maintains turgor pressure, which is what keeps a plant rigid — a plant wilts when its vacuoles lose water. It can fill up to 90% of a mature plant cell, pushing the other organelles against the wall.