BIOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION

1
BIOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION

• The purpose of biological classification is to
• Have a system of naming organisms that is
  accepted around the world.
• 2) Predict how living things are related to one
  another.

2
History of classification

• Aristotle 350 BC. Divided living things into
  two kingdoms animals (things that move) and
  plants (things that dont move.
• He further divided plants into three categories
  

3

• Herbs small tender plants
• Shrubs medium plants with many woody trunks
• c) Trees large plants with one large trunk

Aristotle also placed animals into three
categories
4

• Flying animals (birds, bugs, bats)
• Swimming animals (fish, shellfish)
• Crawling animals (land animals)
• What are some problems with Aristotles system?

5

• 1735 Karl Linné devised a naming system of
  binomial nomenclature. Every organism received a
  first name and a last name. Most of these came
  from Greek or Latin.
• First name the genus (plural is genera)
• A genus is a group of very similar organisms.

6

• Last name is species. Two organisms are of the
  same species if
• They can mate and produce a fertile offspring.
• Example The scientific name of a dog is
• Canis familiaris. This includes all breeds of
  domestic dogs. A wolf is Canis lupus. Same
  genus, different species.

7

• The scientific name is always underlined or
  written in italics. The genus is always
  capitalized, the species is never capitalized.

Linné further grouped all living organisms into
smaller categories
8

• The categories go from general (Kingdom) to
  specific (species).

Kingdom Today is based on 1) cell type and
2) nutrition
Animal many cells, eating Plant many cells,
makes own food Fungus many cells, absorbs
nutrients Protist one cell with
nucleus Bacteria one cell, no nucleus
9

• Classification continues as follows
• Kingdom animals
• Phylum Vertebrates (animals with backbones)
• Class Mammals (vertebrates that nurse young)
• Order Carnivore (mammals that eat meat)
• Family Felidae (cats)
• Genus Panthera (large cats that dont purr)
• Species onca

10

• The scientific name of this organism is Panthera
  onca

(jaguar)
An effective classification system will allow
scientists to determine if organisms are related
and if so, to what degree.