: SYSTEMATICS BASED

LESSON 15
ON EVOLUTIONARY
RELATIONSHIP: TAXONOMY
CLASSIFICATIONS- method of groupings
organisms; arranging entities into some type of
order to provide a system for cataloguing and
expressing relationships between these entities.

HIERARCHY- a system of organizing groups into

ranks according to status; putting groups at
various levels according to importance or
power.
NOMENCLATURE- the formal naming of taxa
according to some according to some standardized
system. For plants, fungi, and algae, rules for naming
are provided by the International Code of Botanical
Nomenclature. For animals, rules on naming are
based on the International Code of Zoological
Nomenclature.

IDENTIFICATION- is the process of associating an

unknown taxon with a known one.
DESCRIPTION- is the assignment of features or
attributes (characters) to a taxon.

TAXONOMY- the theory and practice of classifying

organisms.

The taxonomic system was devised by Carolus

Linnaeus (1707-1778). It is hierarchical system since
organisms are grouped into ever more categories
from species up to kingdom.
In 1981, a category higher than a kingdom, called
domain, was proposed by Carl Woese. The Linnaean
taxonomy which is hierarchical I nature is the most
employed system nowadays.

Binomial nomenclature- Binomial comes from the

words “bi” meaning “two” and “nomen” meaning
“name”. A species name consists of two parts:e
genus or genericname and the specific epithet.
The first letter of the genus is always capitalized (e.g.
Canis) while the specific epithet is not capitalized
(e.g. familiaris.) Species name can be in bold letters/
underlined/italiczed.

The table below illustrates how four species are

classified using the present classification system.
DOMAIN EUKARYA
KINGDOM Animalia Plantae
PHYLUM Chordata Arthropoda Magnoliophyta
CLASS Mammalia Insecta Lilopsida
ORDER Primates Canivora Diptera Liliales
FAMILY Hominidae Canidae Drosophilidae Liliacease
GENIUS Homo Canis Drosophila Allium
Specific epithet Sapiens Familliaris Melanogaster Cepa
SPECIES Homo Sapiens Canis Familiaris Drosophila Allium cepa
Melanogaster
COMMON NAME human dog Fruit fly Onion
Dichotomous key is tool that helps identify unknown organisms to some taxonomic level (e.g., species, genus, family,
etc.,)
DOMAIN EUKARYA FEATURES

KINGDOM Animalia Organisms that are able to move on their own.

PHYLUM Chordata Animals with a backbone.
CLASS Mammalia Chordates with fur or hair and milk glands.
ORDER Primates Mammals with grapping fingers.
FAMILY Hominidae Primates with relatively flat faces and three-dimensional
vision.
GENUS Homo Hominids with upright position and large brain
Specific epithet Sapiens Members if the genus Homo with a forehead and notably
thin skull bones.
SPECIES Homo sapiens
COMMON NAME human