Life Continuing, and Life's Variety
Diversity and classification
Place an organism in one of the five kingdoms, run the hierarchy from kingdom down to species, and read and write a scientific name in the binomial system.
Imagine a library whose thousands of books have been tipped onto the floor, and you want one particular title. Without subjects, authors and sections you would be there for a week. The Earth holds millions of kinds of organism, and classification is the shelving: a systematic way of arranging them so that one of them can be found, compared and studied.
Five kingdoms, and what separates them
Monera holds the prokaryotes, whose nucleus has no membrane. The rest are eukaryotes. Protista are the single-celled ones. Of the multicellular eukaryotes, Fungi have chitin cell walls and feed on dead matter, Plantae have cellulose cell walls and make their own food, and Animalia have no cell wall and feed on other organisms.
Have a play
The seven bands of the classification pyramid, each one named.
Tap any part of the picture.
Worked example
A tiger is Animalia, Chordata, Vertebrata, Mammalia, Carnivora, Felidae, Panthera, P. tigris. What is the pattern in that list?
Read it top to bottom: it starts with the widest group, the animals as a whole, and ends with one kind of animal.
The hierarchy runs broad to specific. At each step down, more features are shared by the members of the group.
Try it together
Now handle a scientific name the way the rules ask.
The tiger's scientific name is Panthera tigris and the lion's is Panthera leo.
1.Which word of Panthera tigris names the genus? Write the word.
Have a go
Have a go on your own. A mushroom's cell wall is built from which substance? Give the one word.
Ready to practise?
Eight questions on what you have just read. Nothing is timed, and you can play as many times as you like.