1. History of Classification
By Mr. Krall

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

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

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

5. 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.

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

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

8. 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.

9. 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

10. 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