AnimalFiles Wiki



A Brief History Of The Taxonomic System
Taxonomy is a system made for categorizing living organisms, by grouping them by them by their characteristics. Taxonomy's first father was Aristotle who lived from 384-322 BC, sometimes called "father of science". Aristotle introduced the two concepts of categorizing life we still use today: classification of organisms by type and binomial definition.

When Aristotle attempted to classify life, he classified them into groups; animals that have blood, animals that don't have blood. Animals that live on land, animals that live in water. His view on classification was hierarchal, the greatest to the least. Humans were, of course, on the top. Aristotle didn't believe in evolution, and thought that everything was fixed and couldn't change, therefore didn't classify the animals by characteristics that they share.

John Ray lived from 1627-1705 AD. John Ray classified organisms based on their overall morphology rather than just a part of it. In doing so he could establish relationships between species more easily and organize them into groups more effectively. John Ray also divided plants with flowers into two major groups - monocotyledons and dicotyledons.

Carl Linnaeus

Explore The Taxonomical System
Start exploring the animal world. Search an animal up if you have one in mind. If you don't have a specific animal in mind, click on "Domain" to start exploring. Or you can click on another rank in the taxonomical system and read about it. The taxonomical system is in Latin, and animals' scientific names are also in Latin so the plurals are strange.

Vocabulary
Prokaryote : A microscopic single-celled organism which has neither a distinct nucleus with a membrane nor other specialized organelles, including the domains Bacteria and Archaea.

Eukaryote : An organism consisting of a cell or cells in which the genetic material is DNA in the form of chromosomes contained within a distinct nucleus. Eukaryotes include all living organisms other than the domains Bacteria and Archaea.

Diurnal : Antonym of Nocturnal, meaning that it is awake and moving in the day and sleeps at night.

Nocturnal : Antonym of Diurnal, meaning that it is awake and moving in the night and sleeps during the day.

Arboreal : Meaning that it lives in the trees, hunting and sleeping up there as well. Semi-Arboreal means that it lives half in the trees, half on the ground.

Terrestrial : Meaning that it lives on the ground, everything it does is on the ground. This does not include water.





Life Of The Week
Petaurus Breviceps (Sugar Glider)

Domain: Eukarya Kingdom: Animalia  Phylum: Chordata  Class: Mammalia  Order: Diprotodontia  Family: Petauridae  Genus: Petaurus  Species: Petaurus Breviceps

