Classification

By Mrs. AlldredEdited Mrs. Rogers

Classification

The arrangement of organisms into orderly groups based on their similarities.

Classifying

Makes things easier for biologist to find answer to many important questions such as:

How many known species are there? What are the characteristics of each

species? Why are some species extinct?

Levels of Classification

Domain,kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species

Mnemonics D K P C O F G S

Classification Did King Phillip Came Over For Good Spaghetti

D K P C O F G S

Classification Pyramid

Kingdom

Phylum

Class

Order

Family

Genus

Species

Domain

Taxonomy

The science of identifying, classifying, and naming living things.

Carolus Linneaus Lived in 1700’s Attempted to

classify all known organisms by only their shared characteristics.

Example: If it swam or ran or if it had hair or scales

Modern Classification

Based on evolutionary relationships.

Grouped according to what organism that scientist think are their ancestors.

Naming Names

An organism’s scientific name is always the same for a specific organism no matter how many common names it has.

Scientist from all over the world use the same scientific name.

What is this animal called? Skunk Une Mouffette Cheche Un Zorrillo Mephitis mephitis

Naming names

Before Linneaus some scientist used as many as 15 Latin names.

Linneaus used his observations to devise a naming system for organisms known as binomial nomenclature.

Linneaus gave each organism a two part name.

“bi”= two “nomen”= name Binomial nomenclature= two

names First part is the genus, 2nd part is

the species.

The scientific name must consist of the genus name and the specific name.

Specific name is the same as the species.

Elephas maximus- Asian Elephant What is the genus? What is the specific name? What is the species?

The first name is capitalized, the second name is not.

Both names should either be underlined or Italicized.

Scientific Name

Homo sapien or Homo sapienGenus= HomoSpecies (Specific Name)=

sapienMost scientific names are in

Greek or Latin

EX: Felis domesticus

Felis = _________ Domesticus= ___________

Greek & Latin Names

The name actually has a full meaning.

Ex: Tyrannosaurus rex- 1st part = “tyrant lizard”

2nd part = “King”

Give a name for this bird

Scientist around the world would have a hard time understanding this name.

But it has a scientific name:

Passerina cyanea

Dichotomous Key Taxonomist have developed special

guides known as a Dichotomous Key Used to aid in identifying unknown

organisms.

Turn to page 226 in science book

We are going to identify the animal on the left

Go to #1 –read it and follow directions!

Review 1. Why do scientist use scientific

names for organisms? 2.Explain the two parts of a scientific

name. 3. List the eight levels of

classification. 4.Describe how a dichotomous key

helps to identify unknown organisms.

The End