Classification
• Suppose you had only 10 minutes to run into a
supermarket to get what you needed. Could you
do it? In most supermarkets this would be an
easy task. You would probably head straight to
the area where the items were located. But what
if you had to shop for the same items in a market
where things were randomly placed throughout
the store. Where would you begin? You would
have to search through a lot of things before you
found what you needed! You could be there for a
long time!
Classification – putting things into
groups based on similar characteristics
Why Classify?
• Make sense out of a chaotic natural world
• Easier to find information
• Identify relationships
Biologist organize living things into
categories
• Taxonomy - the science of identifying and
classifying organisms
We Use Classification Every Day!
• Classify our clothes – (hopefully they are not all mixed
together in a big pile on your bedroom floor)
• Classify our dishes – (bowls, plates,
spoons, forks, cups)
• Classify our food – (how did you know
where to find the cereal this morning?)
Classifying
•
•
•
•
•
1 group
2 groups
3 groups
4 groups
5 groups
Early Classification
• Aristotle – 4th century B.C.
• Classification based on – where animals lived
Land
Water
Air
Problems
• Some animals fit into more than one group
Early Classification
• Carolus Linnaeus (Carl von Linne) - Swedish
biologist in early 1700’s
• Classification based on – shape and structure
“The father of modern taxonomy”
Carolus Linnaeus
Two important contributions
Hierarchical
Classification
Binomial
Nomenclature
Grouping
organisms
Naming
organisms
Hierarchical Classification – ranked
from more general to more specific
More
General
More
Specific
Kingdom
Phylum
Class
Order
Family
Genus
Species
At each level – the organisms become
more closely related
Remembering Hierarchical
Classification - mnemonics
Kingdom
King
Phylum
Phillip
Class
Came
Order
Over
Family
For
Genus
Good
Species
Soup
Practice using Hierarchical
classification
The more
levels you
share with
others,
the more you
have in
common
Practice using Hierarchical
classification
• Classify your closet into K,P,C,O,F,G,S
Naming Organisms
• Scientific name – a name that remains the
same in the biological world
Why not use common names?
• Names are often not physically accurate
Silverfish
Seahorse
• Names differ in other countries/languages
Sweden - groda
Africa - padda
Russia - zhaba
Italy - rana
“FROG”
• Many names may apply to the same creature
Mt. Lion
Puma
Cougar
• One name may apply to several different
creatures
European robin
American robin
Names are written in Latin
In the Middle Ages,
Latin became the
accepted language
of the scholar and
scientist
Why Latin?
• Latin is a “dead” language
It is no longer spoken as a national or even regional
language anywhere in the world. Because of this, Latin
words do not change so the pure Latin is not be
corrupted by developing slang words from it
“bruisecruise,” “shingrater,” and “stonesoup”
just some of the over 300 slang terms used to
describe the same exact thing –
crashing on a skateboard
Why Latin?
• Latin need not be translated
No matter what language you speak, the Latin scientific
name is left as it is instead of using the common name
Polynomial
• used many words to describe the organism
Catnip
"Nepeta floribus interrupte
spicatus pendunculatis"
(Nepeta with flowers in an
interrupted pedunculated
spike).
Honey bee
Apis, pubescens,
thorace subgriseo,
abdomine fusco,
pedibus posticis glabris
utrinque margine
ciliates
12 words long!
Name for humans…
• “hairy on top, bare on the bottom of the
walking surfaces, bipedal, eyes forward with
binocular vision, opposable thumbs, no wings,
no feathers, capable of rational thought and
the capacity to love.”
Binomial nomenclature
• two part scientific name
The scientific name for
the Asian elephant is
Elephas maximus
Rules for writing scientific names
1. Use the genus and species
Kingdom
Phylum
Class
Order
Family
Genus
Species
Elephas
maximus
Rules for writing scientific names
2. Genus is first
– It is always capitalized
3. Species is second
– It is always lower case
4. Both words are italicized or underlined
Example
• Ursus arctos or Ursus arctos
The Mushroom Coral
• Phylum Cnidaria
•
•
Class Anthozoa
Order Scleractinia
•
Family Fungiidae
•
Genus Fungia
•
Species scutaria
Practice using binomial nomenclature
• Remember that binomial nomenclature is a
two-name naming system…kind of like a first
and a last name.
MaIia Kunde
individual
or species
Kunde malia
The group I
belong to or
genus
Kunde malia
Practice using binomial nomenclature
• Which of these names is written correctly in
binomial nomenclature?
A. felis domesticus
B. Felis Domesticus
C. Felis domesticus
D. felis Domesticus
What does a third name mean?
• Subspecies
tiger species is Panthera tigris
Bengal tiger is Panthera tigris tigris
Siberian tiger is Panthera tigris altaica
• Person who discovered it
Strigiphilus aris garylarsoni
Abbreviating
• Use the Capital letter of the Genus
• Example: E. coli or T. rex
• Heterotrophic Eubacteria
Cyanobacteria