Sit down in you assigned seats
In your notebook answer these questions:
• How is a grocery store organized?
• How are things classified?
• Imagine you tell your mom to buy you your
favorite cereal, write down the steps she has
to take to locate your cereal in the store…
WHY DO WE CLASSIFY?
• Imagine trying to find something in Walmart if they didn’t classify
their products
• Grocery section…freezer section…ice cream aisle…Blue Bell…Rocky
Road
• Home supplies…pet products…cat aisle…canned cat food…Tuna
Friskies
• Imagine trying to find a specific photo saved on your computer if
there were no labeled files on it
WHAT EXACTLY IS TAXONOMY?
-Classification: putting things into orderly groups
based on similar characteristics
-Taxonomy: the science of describing, naming,
and classifying organisms
WHY DO WE CLASSIFY ORGANISMS?
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•
•
•
Necessary for order
Can make predictions from patterns
Communicate clearly
Have common understanding
HOW DO WE CLASSIFY?
• Physical similaritiesappearance and
behavior
• Genetic similaritiesDNA
THE HIERARCHY OF LIFE
-Each level is nested in a higher
and more general level
-Becomes more specific/similar
as you move toward species
THE HISTORY OF CLASSIFYING ORGANISMS
• Aristotle: grouped everything into
simple groups such as plants and
animals
• Then grouped animals according
to if they had blood or didn’t have
blood, laid eggs, etc…
• Carolus Linnaeus: created a
standard naming system
• Binomial nomenclature
WHY DO WE NEED A STANDARD NAMING
SYSTEM?
Are all of these
really bears?
WHY DO WE NEED A STANDARD NAMING
SYSTEM?
How many different species of bear are shown?
BINOMIAL NOMENCLATURE
-Common names used by people can be
misleading, confusing, and repetitive
-Scientists need a consistent naming
protocol to communicate effectively
-Binomial nomenclature
•Two name system
•Greek and Latin words
BINOMIAL NOMENCLATURE
-Dracorex hogwartsia: dinosaur
-Spongiforma squarepantsii: mushroom
-Euglossa bazinga: bee
-Agathidium vaderi: beetle
-Axima sidi: wasp
-Tinkerbella nana: fly
-L. baratheoni, L. lannisteri, L. targaryeni, and L. starki: wasps
3 RULES OF BINOMIAL NOMENCLATURE
1.) The genus (last name) is always written
first and the species (first name) is
written second
2.) The first letter of the genus is always
capitalized and the species is lower case
3.) Both genus and species are underlined
or italicized
CHECK FOR UNDERSTANDING
Which is the correctly written scientific name for
domestic cats?
a) Felis Domesticus
b) felis domesticus
c) Felis domesticus
d) kitty
CHECK FOR UNDERSTANDING
Which pair of organisms is more closely
related?
a) Acer rubrum & Acer saccharum
b) Acer rubrum & Chenopodium rubrum
TAXONOMY
-How does naming organisms relate
to classifying organisms?
-How does taxonomy
(naming/classifying) relate to
phylogeny (evolutionary
relationships)?
Scientists originally grouped
organisms just based on the
physical similarities that they could
see.
How well do you think physical traits
demonstrate relatedness of
different species?
DICHOTOMOUS KEY
 A dichotomous key is a tool that allows the user
to determine the identity of items in the natural
world based on the items characteristics
 "Dichotomous" means
“divided into two parts” Greek origin
dichotomous keys always give two distinct choices
in each step, often they are opposites
Black/white; good/evil; pointed/rounded