BASIC TAXONOMY CLASSIFICATION

What is the classification system for identifying the different flora and fauna, why do we need this and how did it originate?

 

Back in the 18th century, a Swedish man named Carolus Linnaeus thought it was important to organize all living things and he developed a system to do just that. He started out interested in plants, but he ended up ordering all life as he knew it. We still use the essence of his system today, where scientists are constantly refining the system based on new knowledge.

Classifying the flora and fauna in order like this is called taxonomy. Taxonomists are people who name and classify the flora and fauna, they use a book called the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, or ICZN, which guides them under the rules for classifying.

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Carolus Linnaeus’s system has seven main levels, although there are many sub levels:

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1. Kingdom

2. Phylum

3. Class

4. Order

5. Family

6. Genus

7. Species

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1. KINGDOM

Generally, scientists agree there are six kingdoms. The animal kingdom (called Kingdom Animalia) is just one of those. The other kingdoms are Achaebacteria, Eubacteria, Protists, Fungi and Plants. Originally, Linnaeus only identified two kingdoms: plant and animal, but these have been expanded over the years.

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2. PHYLUM

Within the animal kingdom, the animals are divided into more than 30 phyla (which is the plural of phylum). For instance, the Phylum Chordata, this is the one humans and all animals with backbones are grouped.

These Phyla have sub-phylum which sit below the phylum but above class.

For example, the Phylum Arthropoda which contains insects, spiders and other animals with segmented bodies, has five sub-phyla, one of which is Crustacea.

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3. CLASS

The third level of classification is class. For example, Phylum Arthropoda, sub-phylum crustacea has six classes, one of which the largest is malacostracan, whose members constitute more than two-thirds of all living crustacean species.

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4. ORDER

The next level down, or rank, is Order. Orders are smaller groups within the different classes.

Malacostracans are the most numerous and most successful of the four major classes of Crustacea. Within the class Malacostracans is Decapoda which is the Order of crayfish, crabs, lobsters, shrimps and prawns.

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5. FAMILY

Palaemonidae is a family of shrimp in the order Decapoda. Palaemon is a genus of the infraorder

(a ranking below order but above sub-order) Caridean shrimp (true shrimp), of the family Palaemonidae.

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6. GENUS

This rank is the second-to-last rank, and a genus may have only one or two animals in it. If animals are in the same genus, they are really closely related. 

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7. SPECIES

If animals can breed together successfully, they are a species. When an animal is called by its scientific name, then that means it is being identified by its genus and species. We use a lowercase letter and italics for the species. The scientific name of the common shrimp is Palaemon serratus.

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Therefore, the taxonomy classification for the common shrimp is:

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1.   Kingdom             Animalia

2.   Phylum                Arthopod

      Sub-phylum         Crustacea

3.   Class                   Malacostraca

4.   Order                  Decapoda

      Infraorder           Caridean

5.   Family                 Palcemonidoe

6.   Genus                 Palaemon

7.   Species               Seratus

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