Taxonomy

 science of classifying organisms --groups related organisms together --assigns each a name

 About 1.5 million species named  million species yet to be discovered

spider monkeysea monkey sea horsegray wolf fireflycrayfish mud puppyhorned toad ringwormblack bear jellyfish Common names can be confusing and names can vary by region.

 Organisms can have more than 1 common name but  all organisms have only 1 scientific name -usually Latin or Greek -developed by Carolus Linnaeus

Two-word naming system  -Written in italics (or underlined if handwritten) -1st word is Capitalized --Genus -2nd word is lowercase ---species  Examples:  Felis concolor- Mountain Lion, Cougar  Homo sapiens-Human  Panthera leo- Lion  Panthera tigris-Tiger

 Devised the current system of classification, which uses the following schema:  Kingdom  Phylum  Class  Order  Family  Genus  Species

 Organisms are sorted into nested groups  Related organisms are grouped together

 Related groups  have common ancestors  have DNA similarity  Related organisms have some similar traits. For example:  Physical traits  Food requirements

 If we know what group an organism belongs to  Then we know some traits of that organism  The finer scale of classification (e.g., Kingdom v. Order) the more we know about the traits of an organism.

 If we identify something as an animal  Then we know it must eat to get its food  Because organisms in the animal kingdom must eat their food  If we identify something as a dragonfly  Then we know it must be a predator  because organisms in the dragonfly order are predators

 Rodents  Mouse  Rat  Primates  Orangutans  Chimpanzees

 Arthropods  May fly  Crane fly