Imagine all groups of living beings present on the planet! You've probably separated them into groups such as animals, plants, fungi, protozoa, and bacteria. You have unconsciously just classified some of the Earth's living beings.
Usually when we find a lot of different things, we try to group them so as to unite those that have similar characteristics. When washing a lot of clothes, for example, we separate the white from the colored ones. This is a form of classification.
Living beings were also separated into groups to facilitate their study. The first person who attempted such a feat was the philosopher Aristotle, which grouped all living beings into two groups: those who had blood and those who did not. Of course, this classification was not ideal, but others were later proposed.
In the late 18th century, Carl von Linné proposed a classification by categories, based on anatomical similarities, which is used until now with some minor changes. At first he considered that the basic group of classification was a species. For him, a species would be a group of individuals with characteristics not observed in any other group.
The species that showed some similarity were grouped into genres. Similar genres were grouped into families. Families with common characteristics were grouped into orders, and similar orders were grouped into classes. These, in turn, were grouped into phyla, and these, in kingdoms.
Therefore, we have the following categories, also called taxonomic categories:
Kingdom → Phylum → Class → Order → Family → Gender → Species
Note that the broadest category is the kingdom and the narrowest is the species. Our species, for example, has the same kingdom as fish, birds and crocodiles. See below the taxonomic categories in which man finds himself:
Animal Kingdom
Phylum: Strings
Class: Mammals
Order: Primates
Family: Hominid
Gender: Homo
Species: Homosapiens
In addition to these categories, many researchers usually use some intermediate categories, that is, between one category and another. Among these categories, we can mention the subphylum, superfamily, subfamily and subgenus.
Curiosity: The name taxonomy is given to the part of biology that describes, names and classifies all living beings.
By Ma. Vanessa dos Santos
