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