Classification, taxonomy, Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species, Carl Linnaeus.
Also known as Taxonomy, classification is the principle method of teaching us how a species is where it is. We can trace back through the types of species, and older 'versions' of the animal and see where they have come from.
In the 1730s, Carl Linnaeus, a scientists that worked on taxonomy, pushed forward his ideas that there should be a naming culture for every organism known to humankind.
He formed the Linnaean binomial system of nomenclature. This is where we use Latin names for species, genuses and families. Every organism we know has a name. As a human, your binomial nomenclature is Homo sapiens.
Take a look at this YouTube video to see what I mean.
Let's explain the relative example given in the video.
First off, imagine [you may well have] a large collection of music that you need to sort so you can better understand it all. This music is all just sat in a single folder, songs everywhere, no order to it. Then you figure 'oh, I may as well sort it', so you start. But where do you start?
If you think about it, you can start by sorting the music into genres. This would then see you place them into groups of music together - Rock, Pop, Country, Indie, Alternative, Dance, and so on.
Now, you can sort those genres out into artists. So for Rock, for example, you can have The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Kaiser Chiefs, Oasis, Blur, Pulp, The Darkness, and so on.
So, you've got your genres, and you have your artists. Now you need to sort them by album. For this, I will use Kaiser Chiefs. So you would put them in order: Employment (2005), Yours Truly, Angry Mob (2007), Off with Their Heads (2008), The Future is Medieval (2011), Education, Education, Education & War (2014), Stay Together (2016), Duck (2019).
Now we're getting somewhere. We know what genre the music is in (Rock), what the artist name is (Kaiser Chiefs), and the albums they have made. You can go further and list the songs in each album. But for me, I think this should explain the process enough for understanding.
In reference to the animal kingdom, this can be applied equally as easy. Let's take a butterfly species. I've used this particular species with a student before, and it worked quite well.
This is commonly known in the UK as the Monarch butterfly. We know it is a species of butterfly, simply by the fact of it's binomial name - Danaus plexippus. This name is Latin, and is split up into two terms. Danaus is the Genus, and plexippus is the species name. This means there are other butterflies that have the Genus name Danaus, but the only one to have the name plexippus is the Monarch butterfly.
There are several levels of Taxonomy. They include:
Kingdom is the topmost level. It is split into 5 areas - Animalia, Plantae, Fungi, Protista, Archaea and Monera/Prokaryote. These are like the Genre in your music collection. So now you would know that in the animal kingdom (back to the Monarch), it would be listed under Animalia.
In the UK, we use a 5-system set of kingdoms, whereas other countries use a 6-system set. This is due to scientists having added extras in upon research of microbiology.
Second in line is Phylum. As you will notice, all the levels in taxonomy deal with slight differences between them. In the case of your music collection, it would be the artists there. In terms of the Monarch butterfly, this is classed as Arthropoda. This means that it belongs to the same phylum as a scorpion, for instance, as it has an exoskeleton, a segmented body and paired joint appendages.
The third level is Class. Again, the levels in taxonomy deal with slight differences. Your music collection then places the albums in this section. In the animal kingdom, and particularly for the Monarch butterfly, this would be Insecta - meaning it is a type of insect.
The fourth level is Order. You get the idea now, so your music collection (and final in this example) would be the song names. In the Monarch butterfly's example, this would be Lepidoptera. This means 'scaled wings' in Greek, and is the most widely known of the insect orders. It covers 10% of all described species of living organisms.
The fifth level is Family. This simply means it has a family of genus and species. It further narrows down between the differences of the insect, and in the case of the Monarch, its family is called Nymphalidae.
The sixth level is Genus. This is where the Monarch butterfly begins to get its Latin name - Danaus.
The seventh and last level. This is where we know that if it was a type of dog, we would say German Shepherd, Daschund, Border Collie, and so on. Or if it was a type of cat, we could say (domestic) rag doll, short hair, sphinx, siamese. Or bigger cats would be lion, tiger, leopard, and cheetah. In our example of the butterfly, this is plexippus.
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Binomial nomenclature, naming system, Carl Linnaeus, genus, species, italics, underline, Latin.
Binomial nomenclature. Difficult to say in the first place, it is a naming culture that was first coined by a scientist in the mid-1700s.
It is a dual naming purpose given to a species of plant, animal, and other organisms. The way we look at plants and animals, we have to give them all a different name. To understand it better, we will take a look at the Monarch butterfly.
Watch this YouTube video on the Monarch butterfly.
If you watched the video it is explained clearly there. If not, then let me try and explain it as well. A species has two name in a binomial nomenclature naming system - a first name (genus), and a second name (species).
For the Monarch butterfly used in the example there, you will see that the first name is Danaus, and the second name is plexippus. Together, this makes Danaus plexippus. So far, so good.
There are some rules you need to remember in binomial nomenclature:
Genus name always goes first: this is always the case, because when you have several species, but they have the same genus, it is easier to identify.
Genus name is capitalised: this means that Danaus is always a capital letter, and should never be written without being this way.
Species name is never capitalised: this is always lowercase, and never capitalised.
The entire name is italicised or underlined: to make sure you understand that the naming system is naming a species, you have to italicise it, or underline it. You will notice this is the case at the top of the page.
Although many original names came from both Latin and Greek, the majority of names made for new species are consisted of Latin, and are also based on the location they are found, as well as the name of the person who found them.
Without this type of naming system, scientists would not be able to distinguish between two different species within a genus, and also they would have more work to tell organisms apart. This way, it is easier to find them, or to specify which is which.
This naming system has been around since the mid-1700s, and was first explained by Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus. His work paved the way for others to use the system (which he encouraged), and it soon became a commonplace standard.
It also helps scientists know that a species may be in more than one country and area, as the names for these may be different. In the example of the Monarch butterfly, it has other names such as Milkweed Butterfly, Common Tiger Butterfly, and so on.
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