DISTINCTIVE
CHARACTERISTIC
OF A SPECIFIC
TAXON
Taxonomy (which literally means “arrangement
law”) is the science of classifying organisms to
construct internationally shared classification
systems with each organism placed into more and
more inclusive groupings. Think about how a grocery
store is organized. One large space is divided into
departments, such as dairy and meats. Then, each
department further divides into aisles, then each
aisle into categories and brands, and then finally a
single product. This organization from larger to
smaller, more specific categories is called a
hierarchical system.
In the eighteenth century, a scientist named Carl Linnaeus
first proposed organizing the known species of organisms into
a hierarchical taxonomy. In this system, species that are most
similar to each other are put together within a grouping
known as a genus. Furthermore, similar genera (the plural of
genus) are put together within a family. This grouping
continues until all organisms are collected together into
groups at the highest level. The current taxonomic system
now has eight levels in its hierarchy, from lowest to highest:
species, genus, family, order, class, phylum, kingdom, and
domain. Thus, species are grouped within genera, genera are
grouped within families, families are grouped within orders,
and so on.
The kingdom Animalia stems from the Eukarya
domain. For the common dog, the classification levels
would be as shown in the figure above. Therefore, the
full name of an organism technically has eight terms.
For the dog, it is Eukarya, Animalia, Chordata,
Mammalia, Carnivora, Canidae, Canis, and lupus.
Notice that each name is capitalized except for
species, and the genus and species names are
italicized. Scientists generally refer to an organism
only by its genus and species, which is its two-word
scientific name, in what is called binomial
nomenclature. Each species has a unique binomial
nomenclature to allow for proper identification.
The name at each level is also called a taxon. In other words, dogs are
in order Carnivora. Carnivora is the name of the taxon at the order
level; Canidae is the taxon at the family level, and so forth. Organisms
also have a common name that people typically use, in this case, dog.
Note that the dog is additionally a subspecies: the “familiaris” in Canis
lupus familiaris. Subspecies are members of the same species that
are capable of mating and reproducing viable offspring, but they are
considered separate subspecies due to geographic or behavioral
isolation or other factors.
Scientists commonly use the Three Domain System to depict the
evolutionary history of living things based on the idea that all cells
share a least universal common ancestor (LUCA) that evolved into
three umbrella domains: the prokaryotic Archaea, prokaryotic
Bacteria, and eukaryotic Eukarya. Domains are divided further into
kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species.
Note that only genus and species names are
italicized:
Domain: Eukarya
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Hominidae
Genus: Homo
Species: sapiens Scientific name: Homo sapiens
(modern human)
Importance of Taxonomy in
Biology
Identifying taxonomic groups shows how living things relate to one
another. Scientists use behavior, genetics, embryology, comparative
anatomy, and fossil records to classify a group of organisms with shared
characteristics. A universal nomenclature system facilitates
communication between researchers conducting similar studies.
In the western world, Aristotle and his protégé, Theophrastus, are credited
with being the first scholars to use taxonomy to make sense of the natural
world. Aristotle’s classification system grouped animals with comparable
features into genera (this is the plural of genus), similar to the current
division of vertebrates and invertebrates.
Advances in Taxonomy
According to the Linnean Society of London, Carolus (Carl)
Linnaeus is known as the “father of taxonomy” and is
considered a pioneer in the field of ecology. Linnaeus
authored the wellknown Systema Naturae, the first edition
of which was published in 1735. Linnaeus established the
uniform naming hierarchy still used today with that two-
word system of binomial nomenclature.
The Linnaean (also written as Linnean) system divided life
into two kingdoms: Animalia and Vegetabilia, largely
based on morphology.
Charles Darwin’s famous work On the Origin of Species expanded the 18 th
century Linnaean classification system to include phyla (singular: phylum)
and evolutionary relationships. French zoologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
made the distinction between vertebrates and invertebrates.
German scientist Ernst Haeckel (also sometimes spelled as Haeckl)
introduced a tree of life with three kingdoms: Animalia, Plantae, and
Protista.
In the 1940s, Ernst Mayr, an ornithologist and curator at the American
Museum of Natural History, made a groundbreaking discovery in
evolutionary biology. Mayr observed that isolated populations evolve
differently as the result of random mutations and natural selection.
Eventually, the differences give rise to a new species. His findings shed
new light on the process of speciation and taxonomic classification.
