Download Notes on Classifying Organisms

Classifying Organisms
Aristotle (384-322 BC)
•Aristotle was the first person to classify organisms
•He classified things as animals, plants, or minerals.
•He grouped living things by where they lived – air, land or sea.
Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778)
•Linnaeus developed the modern classification system being used today.
•He grouped organisms based on similar characteristics.
2-Word Scientific Name
•All organisms have a scientific name consists of the Genus and the Species name.
•For example: Modern Humans has the scientific name – Homo sapiens (Homo is the
genus name and always capitalized and sapiens is the species name always in lower
case)
Seven levels of classification
MODERN HUMANS
•Kingdom – ANIMALIA (all animals)
•Phylum – CHORDATA (has a notochord)
•Class – MAMMALIA (has a neocortex, hair, three middle ear bones, and mammary
glands.
•Order – PRIMATES (lemurs, monkeys, apes)
•Family – HOMINIDAE (great apes)
•Genus – HOMO (primitive & modern humans)
•Species – SAPIENS (modern humans)
Systematics
•Referred to as the modern study of classification.
•Only use DNA and molecular Biology to identify relationships between organisms.
•The more DNA sequences two species have in common the more likely that they share a
most recent common ancestor.
•Domain is the highest level and then Kingdom – Bacteria, Archaea, or Eukarya