Classification

Classification

Understanding the diversity of life on Earth

​History of Classification

• ​Classification is a system of organizing life and the relationships between organisms.

• Our understanding of life has changed how we classify organisms.

• Classification began with Aristotle who began classifying organisms based on physical characteristics.

Multiple Choice

Given the idea that organisms are classified by physical characteristics, which of these would Aristotle classify as related to the bat pictured here?

Multiple Choice

Which of these animals do you think is actually most closely related to the bat?

​Why is classification important?

• ​Classification helps us understand the world around us.

• With over 8.7 million species on Earth, classification allows us to explore and understand relationships and origins of species.

• TAXONOMY=scientific study of how things are classified

​Carl Linnaeus

• ​Swedish zoologist that created the binomial nomenclature used by scientist.

• Bi=two nomial=name

• Loved Latin and insisted that all scientific names sound Latin.

• Genus = group of organisms that the species belongs to

• Species = gives the specific name of the species

​Scientific name structures

​A scientific name includes two words (sometimes a third if it includes a subspecies)

The first word in the name is the genus

The second word is the specific epithet
Genus + specific epithet = species

Genus species

It needs to be UNDERLINED or ITALICIZED and not both. It may be abbreviated by using the first initial of the genus and the species. The genus is capitalized and the species in lowercase

EXAMPLES:

Domestic dog - Canis familiaris (abbreviation C. familiaris)

​Scientific names are universal, while other languages have different words for different animals, the scientific name is the same everywhere.

​English = dog

Japanese = inu

German = der Hund

Italian = il Cane

​Scientific name is always Canis familiaris

​Examples continued

​Domestic dog = Canis familiaris

Wolf = Canis lupus

Coyote = Canis latrans

In these examples, you can see that all three of these organisms have the same GENUS because they are closely related. but each one has a species identifier that makes their name unique.

​Classification

Mnemonic

Did

King

Phillip

Come

Over

For

Good

Soup

Labelling

Label the Classification diagram

Drag labels to their correct position on the image

Family

Species

Domain

Class

Phylum

Kingdom

Order

Genus

Prokaryote and Eukaryote

​One of the first ways we classify organisms is by determining if it is a prokaryote or a eukaryote.

The Three Domains

	​Prokaryote	​Eukaryote	​Archaea
Does it have a nucleus	​NO	​YES	​NO
Characteristics	​Single-celled, has a nucleolus	​Includes multicellular organisms	​Single-celled organisms
Examples	Bacteria	Plants, animals	Extremophiles

​The Six Kingdoms

Open Ended

What DOMAIN and KINGDOM do you think HUMANS belong to?