Classification
Classification is basically putting things into orderly groups based on similar characteristics.
Why do we classify?
Scientists classify living things to make sense of the different kinds of life on the planet, and to make some kind of order out of them.
Classifying organisms makes it easier for us to understand the relationships between plants/animals, and the differences between them.
How do scientists classify organisms?
Scientists look for similarities and differences that exist in organisms, and use them to group them.
This process is called taxonomy.
One visual system scientists use in classifying animals is called a branching diagram.
Branching diagrams are pictures used to show what organisms have in common, and how closely related they are.
*The branching diagram above shows us that chimps are more closely related to mice than hagfish, and gives a general overview of the common characteristics these organisms share.
Further, scientists use a 7-level classification system to classify organisms based on what they have in common. Each level of the system categorizes animals based on increasing levels of similarities.
The levels of classification are as follows:
- Kingdom: Every living animal is classified into 1 of 6 kingdoms: Animals, Plants, Fungus, Protists, Archaebacteria, Eubacteria.
- Phylum: From there, animals are further classified based on more common characteristics into several phyla.
- Class: Each phyla is further broken down based on similarities to class.
- Order: Classes are further broken down into orders.
- Family: Orders are broken into families of greater similarities.
- Genus: Families are broken into several genus of highly similar creatures.
- Species: Species represents the final level of taxonomy and is the level at which we group unique organisms. Each species is uniquely different than another, even very similar species.
Another important purpose for classifying organisms, is that, by classifying them, we can give them scientific names – which are always constant, no matter where in the world we’re talking about an animal. These names consist of the Latin version of the genus (first) and a description of the animal or the name of the discoverer (second). For instance, the scientific name of the asian elephant is Elephas maximus. Because the scientific name contains the genus of the animal, we can tell that other animals with names that have the same first part are probably related.
Classification & Relationships Branching Diagram Game
Scientific Name Game
Tags: Branching Diagrams, Classification, Kingdoms, Scientific Names, Taxonomy
Posted in Biological Science, Classification
