Classification activity
Use the appendix in the back of the book to fill in the chart below. Then,
answer the questions that follow.
Kingdom
Snake
Insect
Jellyfish
Cholera
Fern
Scorpion
Portuguese
man-of-war
Green algae
Orchid
Tapeworm
Clam
Gorilla
Fluke
Whale
Salamander
Phylum
Class
Order
Questions
1. To which kingdom(s) did the greatest number of organisms belong?
2. From the list of organisms, name two that you think are closely related to
one another.
3. Why did you group the organisms in number 2 together?
4. From the list of organisms, name two that you think are most different
from one another.
5. Why did you select the organisms in number 4?
6. To which organism do you think the humans would be most closely
related? Why?
7. Look at Figure 3 on page 425 of your textbook. Count the number of
organisms for each of the taxa in the figure, and write the number beside
the name of each taxa below.
a. Domain
b. Kingdom
c. Phylum
d. Class
e. Order
f. Family
g. Genus
h. Species
8. What happens to the number of organisms in each taxa as the groupings
get more and more specific?
9. Can you have more than 1 organism at the Species taxa?
10. Can you have only 1 organism at the Domain taxa?
11. Look at Figure 6 on page 428 of your textbook. The picture on the right
shows a “family tree” or phylogenetic tree, which shows a hypothesis of
relationships between several groups. Name the organism that birds are
most closely related to according to this picture.
12. Look at Figure 7 on page 429 of your textbook. The picture on the right
shows a cladogram, a specific type of phylogenetic tree. Each branch is
called a clade, and each clade is compared with an outgroup, or a group
that lacks some of the shared characteristics. Name the organsism that is
the outgroup in this cladogram.
13. Which characteristics were used to create this cladogram?
14. To which group are flowering plants most distantly related?
15. Look at the “Quick Lab” on the top of page 430 in your book. Create
your cladogram in the space provided below.
16. What is a shared derived character of cats and lizards?
17. What character evolved in the ancestor of frogs but not in that of fish?