What is Taxonomy?

Taxonomy is the science of classification of living things. It uses hierarchy of progressively smaller groups, from kingdom to species, and organizes living things in a way that reflects their evolutionary links. Given below are the principal groups used in classification. In addition to these, taxonomists use a number of intermediate groups, such as suborders or superfamilies.

KINGDOM
One of the overall categories of life, containing organisms that share fundamental features.

PHYLUM
A major grouping within a kingdom; knows as a ‘division’ in the classification of plants and fungi.

CLASS
A major part of a phylum.

ORDER
A part of a class, consisting of one or more families.

FAMILY
A large collection of species that share a number of important physical features.

GENUS
A narrower group containing a small number of species that share many features.

SPECIES
A collection of living things that interbreed in the wild, producing similar offspring.

Source: DK Illustrated Oxford Dictionary

• In the system of classification used by most modern biologists, living things are organized into five kingdoms.
• The smallest kingdom, in terms of species so far indentified, is the Kingdom Monera, which contains bacteria – single-celled organisms that are the simplest forms of life.
• The Kingdom Protista also contains single-celled organisms, together with some multicellular algae, but their ells are larger and more complex than those of monerans.
• Most members of the Kingdom Fungi are multicellular, and live by absorbing organic matter from their surroundings.
• All plants, Kingdom Plantae, are multicellular, and live by photosynthesis. This large kingdom contains some 400,000 known species.
• All insects fall under Phylum Arthropoda of the Kingdom Animalia.