TAXONOMY

Taxonomy
         - science of naming, classifying, and identifying organisms
         - systematics

Levels of Classification (taxa)

     1. Kingdom          4. Order      7. Species
     2. Phylum             5. Family
     3. Class                 6. Genus

Phylogeny
          - natural system of classification that is based on the evolutionary history or genealogy shared by a group of organisms.

Phylogenetic Trees
         - show how related organisms evolved from common ancestors
Method:
     Cladistics
           - involves identifying shared derived traits

Carolus Linnaeus
     - binomial nomenclature
genus

• tells more about the organism
• always capitalized

species

• lower case

Genus and species form the scientific name.  It is either italicized or underlined.

Aristotle
          - father of animal classification
          - land, air, water
          - "species", belonging to the same kind

Artificial Systems
         - took into account only a few characteristics
         - Aristotle and Carolus Linnaeus