History of Classification By Mr. Krall

Over 2,000 years ago there was a man His name was Aristotle (air-is-stah-tul)

He wanted to organize living things to make them easier to study.

Aristotle classified organisms by where they lived. Air Land Water ...but this system had problems.

In Aristotle’s system, where would a duck go? Air Land Water Aristotle’s system was used for many years, but scientists wanted a better system. Ducks get their food from and swim in the water. Does this make them water organisms? Ducks lay eggs on land. They could be land organisms. Ducks fly and migrate. They could be air organisms.

About 250 years ago… Carlous Linnaeus also wanted to classify organisms. He made his own system.

He wrote this book. It explained his system to classify organisms.

Linnaeus’ system is called… binomial nomenclature (by-no-me-ul no-men-clay-chur) which means “two name naming system” We still use this system today.

Domain – the largest groups in modern times Linnaeus put organisms into groups based on their similarities. Then he separated those groups into smaller, more similar groups, and kept going until he got down to one specific type of organism. Domain – the largest groups in modern times Kingdom – the largest groups in Linnaeus’s time Phylum – smaller, more similar groups than in Kingdom Class – smaller, more similar groups than in Phylum Order – smaller, more similar groups than in Class Family – smaller, more similar groups than in Order Genus – smaller, more similar groups than in Family Species – smallest groups – one specific type of organism

For example, the full scientific name of a human is: Domain Eukaryota Kingdom Animalia Phylum Chordata Class Mammalia Order Primates Family Hominidae Genus Homo species sapiens Typically, you just use the last two – Homo sapiens and that is the scientific name of the organism