what does the term “taxonomy” mean?
naming organisms and placing them into containers of classification
what does the term “nomenclature” mean?
system of rules for naming things that’s generally agreed on
why was common language not good enough for naming the species? (aka lead to creation of taxonomy)
- inconsistency in common language
- does not show real biological and evolutionary relationships
- based off of looks
- very generalized
what is meant by the term “folk taxonomy”?
applying common names to taxonomy to capture biological relationships a bit more
what did Carl Linnaeus do? when did he do this (in what context?)
- created Linnaean system of nomenclature (species grouped by similarity)
- before evolutionary studies (so a creationist context)
what are some key features of the Linnaean system of nomenclature? (remaining features)
- hierarchical (goes broader to more specific)
- binomial nomenclature (genus and species names)
what is the order of the hierarchal ranks used to classify species (on order from broad (inclusive) to specific (exclusive)
- domain
- kingdom
- phylum
- class
- order
- family
- genus
- species
what is a taxon or a taxonomic unit?
- unit of classification in any of the ranks
what are the key components of writing a species name using binomial nomenclature?
- first is genus name (capitalized first letter)
- second is species/specific name (no capitals)
- must be in italics or underlined
what are the limitations of Linnaeus classification? (list two)
- in high-level ranks, groups & family lineages of organisms are not always comparable
- doesn’t depict evolutionary relationships
