Why is classifying living things important

One is the phylum Chordata box. This box contains everything that has a notochord, gill slits, and a dorsal nerve cord. The phylum Chordata box contains many classes, one of which is the class Aves. Aves are the birds, with feathers and hollow bones. The class Aves box includes the box labeled order Anseriformes, the waterfowl that are grouped together due to their webbed front toes. The order Anseriformes box contains two family boxes. One of these is the family Anatidae—the swans, ducks, and geese that have a broad bill, a keeled sternum, and other unique features.

The family Anatida box contains the genus Branta. Geese in the genus Branta are noted for bold plumage and legs and bills that are black in color. The genus box Branta holds the species sandvicensis. By examining each level of classification, it becomes clear that Branta sandvicensis is a Hawaiian goose with a black broad bill, legs, webbed toes, feathers, hollow bones, and a notochord.

It must also eat other things. However, no other organism on earth is given the genus Branta and the species sandvicensis. The classification system tells something about the evolutionary relationships among species. Moving down through each level of classification, the number of species in the group decreases Table 1. Two species within the same genus likely share a recent common ancestor in their evolutionary history. These two species would be more closely related to each other than two species classified into different families.

The levels of classification might also provide information on the evolutionary history of a species or other taxonomic group. Such is the case with the coelocanths Latimera spp.

West Indian ocean coelacanth Latimeria chalumnae ; Fig. They are also the only living members of their family Latimeriidae and of their order Coelacanthiformes. All other species belonging to these levels of classification are now extinct. Coelacanths are also some of the very few surviving fish species within the class Sarcopterygii, a group known as the lobe-finned fishes.

All four-limbed vertebrate animals—amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals—also belong to class Sarcopterygii. The coelacanths, and the six species of lung fish, are more closely related to each other and to the four-limed vertebrates than to other fishes. For this reason, the coelacanth offers a rare glimpse into the evolutionary history of vertebrate animals and their limb-development. Classification systems are used in many ways.

Compare the classifications shown in Fig. Most people know something about water vehicles, so it is not necessary to say that a speedboat has a motor. In the same way, there is general knowledge that a tuna is classified as a fish.

So, a tuna can be described without needing to say that it is a fish because. Thus, if we make the statement that a skipjack tuna is caught while fishing in a speedboat, many details can be left out of the description because there is general, underlying knowledge of the classification of boats and tuna. This use of italics is part of the rules that the scientific community has developed for the naming of organisms.

There are three main codes that govern the naming of organisms. Scientific names are useful outside of science. Common names vary from place to place, and the scientific nomenclature system helps eliminate confusion.

This example also brings up another problem with common names. Notice that one of the common names for this fish uses the word dolphin, which is also the common name of a marine mammal. Scientific names are also valuable in navigating the classification system. The classification system provides great deal of information about the characteristics of organisms.

Using scientific names can therefore act as a shorthand method for describing a plant or animal. For example, following a whale stranding along the Maui coastline, an observer might record this information:. This is all information needed to identify the organism and avoid mixing it up with other similar organisms. Of course, when reporting the mammal stranding to her supervisor, the observer will report stranding of a Megaptera novaeangliae , which is the species name that describes the humpback whale.

The scientific name Megaptera novaeangliae encompasses all of the described features. Most binomial names are Latin terms. However, some binomial names are Greek, and some are derived from the names of their discoverers or other scientists.

When Carl Linneaus developed his classification system, almost all educated people were trained in Latin and Greek. No matter what country they came from, people could communicate with one another using these languages. Because Latin and Greek were the common languages of scientists, Latin and Greek were used to develop a universal classification system.

Even today, the English language has many words that were originally Latin or Greek in origin. Latin and Greek terminology is also useful because it tends to be very descriptive of the species in question Table 1.

For example, consider the great white shark. However, the great white shark is universally known by its scientific name of Carcharodon carcarias around the world. The root word — odon sounds like the familiar type of dentist—the orth odon tist. In fact, odon is a root word that means tooth. Carcharo - means jagged. When put together, the word Carcharodon means jagged-toothed shark. The person who named this shark incorporated this observational fact within the name.

Create names for 15 species of sharks and compare them with the actual scientific and common names. Although more than two million different species have been identified by scientists, millions more are likely still undiscovered. A dichotomous key is a tool used by scientists to help them identify organisms that are already classified and described. The key presents a series of choices that leads the user to the identification of the organism.

The series of choices is similar to a series of contrasting hypotheses that are tested by examining the organism to disprove one hypothesis and support the other. A detailed description exists for every organism with a scientific name. The final step in any identification should be to compare the specimen to a species description. It is important to make this comparison because it is possible to misinterpret the information presented, and it is also possible that the specimen was not in the key or that the specimen is even a new, undescribed species.

If the diagnosis does not contradict what is known about the specimen, the identification is supported. For example, if the specimen was caught in water one meter deep, but the diagnosis says that the organism only lives at depths of meters or more, there may be an error in the identification.

If this happens, test other hypotheses by working back through the key and trying to determine where a wrong decision was made.

Like following directions to a rural house in the country, a dichotomous key will almost always lead to a species name just as a road usually leads to a house. But what if a wrong choice was made because a certain feature was missed, or what if the specimen is of a different or new species that shares many features with the one in the key? The best way to ensure that the organism is correctly identified is to confirm that it matches in every way with the species description. It helps us to understand the evolution of all life forms to a large extent.

The Linnaean system is important because it led to the use of binomial nomenclature to identify each species. Once the system was adopted, scientists could communicate without the use of misleading common names. A human being became a member of Homo sapiens, no matter what language a person spoke. Basis of Classification. Species is the basic unit of classification.

Organisms that share many features in common and can breed with each other and produce fertile offspring are members of the same species. Related species are grouped into a genus plural- genera. Asked by: Romen Vonrhein asked in category: General Last Updated: 29th January, What is the importance of classification of living organisms? Living things organized into particular groups have common characteristics. Different scientists use various systems of classification to organize all living things into groups.

Overall, the reason scientists classify living things is to understand the relationships between different organisms. What is the history of classification?

Traditional classification In the 18th century Carolus Linnaeus revolutionized the field of natural history by introducing a formalized system of naming organisms, what we call a taxonomic nomenclature. He divided the natural world into 3 kingdoms and used five ranks: class, order, genus, species, and variety. What are the 7 levels of classification? The two main kingdoms we think about are plants and animals. What is a classification? A classification is a division or category in a system which divides things into groups or types.

The government uses a classification system that includes both race and ethnicity. What are the two groups of living organisms?

With the advancement of knowledge on living world, scientists classified the living organisms into two groups: Plantae, i. In order to fully understand our own biological evolution, we need to be aware that humans are animals and that we have close relatives in the animal kingdom. Grasping the comparative evolutionary distances between different species is important to this understanding. In addition, it is interesting to learn about other kinds of creatures. When did scientists begin classifying living things?

Before the advent of modern, genetically based evolutionary studies, European and American biology consisted primarily of taxonomy , or classification of organisms into different categories based on their physical characteristics and presumed natural relationship. The leading naturalists of the 18th and 19th centuries spent their lives identifying and naming newly discovered plants and animals.

However, few of them asked what accounted for the patterns of similarities and differences between the organisms. This basically nonspeculative approach is not surprising since most naturalists two centuries ago held the view that plants and animals including humans had been created in their present form and that they have remained unchanged.

As a result, it made no sense to ask how organisms have evolved through time. Similarly, it was inconceivable that two animals or plants may have had a common ancestor or that extinct species may have been ancestors of modern ones.

He wrote books mainly describing plant species in extreme detail. Since his published writings were mostly in Latin, he is known to the scientific world today as Carolus Linnaeus , which is the Latinized form he chose for his name. In , Linnaeus published an influential book entitled Systema Naturae in which he outlined his scheme for classifying all known and yet to be discovered organisms according to the greater or lesser extent of their similarities. This Linnaean system of classification was widely accepted by the early 19th century and is still the basic framework for all taxonomy in the biological sciences today.

The Linnaean system uses two Latin name categories, genus and species , to designate each type of organism. A genus is a higher level category that includes one or more species under it. Such a dual level designation is referred to as a binomial nomenclature or binomen literally "two names" in Latin. For example, Linnaeus described modern humans in his system with the binomen Homo sapiens , or "man who is wise".

Homo is our genus and sapiens is our species.