What’s in a name? That which we call a rose By another name would smell as sweet”
Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare
Now that we have gotten to the Kingdoms of Creation, I am itching to visit an animal. What animal would you like to go visit? I think we’ll go to see the lions. To find our way to their house, we will, of course, need to look at a map. Looking at an atlas (a book of maps) of the Kingdom of Animals, you’ll see that there are maps of states separated into regions with an index in the back to help you find each creature.
The lions’ address is P. leo, which might seem like a strange address, but it will help us locate the them just fine. How could you possibly find them with just that simple name in all of creation? All species have this type of name, using a system known as a binomial nomenclature. Each name is made up of two parts (“bi” means two) – the genus (the street that the animal lives on) and the species. The genus is indicated with just the first letter, which is capitalized, and then the whole species name, which is not capitalized. This system was created by a Swedish scientist named Carolus Linnaeus, who you ought to read more about some time.
In the index under P. leo is this entry:
- P. leo
- Genus: Panthera
- Family: Felidae
- Order: Carnivora
- Class: Mammalia
- Phylum: Chordata
You know what genus and family are (You remember the family right? The town where the animal lives.), but what are the order, class, and phylum? And why are the names so weird? The names seem strange because words in binomial nomenclature are often based off of Latin words so that scientists from all over the world can communicate more easily. The phylum is the region where you will find the lions (in plants and fungi, the regions are known as divisions). The class is the state, and the order is the county (like a region in the state). Now, we can go visit the lions – hope they don’t eat us!
Perhaps we should go visit the dogs, instead. Seems safer, don’t you think? The dogs’ address is C. l. familiaris – wait, what? Aren’t there supposed to be two parts to the name? Yes, there normally are, but dogs are a part of a subspecies (a part of a group of animals that could reproduce together but usually don’t, often because they live in different parts of the world). Subspecies use a trinomial nomenclature, with the subspecies name added on the end. The full name written out is Canis lupus familiaris. Canis lupus (or C. lupus) is the wolf, the sister species to the dog. If you would look C. lupus up in the index and find that they are in the same county as the lions – the order Carnivora. They just live a few towns over in the family Canidae on the street Canis. You can think of the subspecies as living in two different houses on a large farm together – make sure you get the right one or you might end up on the menu.
In our world, as opposed to the Kingdoms of Creation, taxonomy, or the classification of creatures, is just a way that scientists organize animals to better understand them. The lions live right with the termites and the grasses on the savanna rather than in their own towns, but it helps scientists to study them if the creatures are classified with like creatures, allowing them to see their similarities and differences more easily. As we said before, the Creator is organized, so understanding the order of creation helps us to understand Him better.
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.
-William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Now that we have gotten to the Kingdoms of Creation, I am itching to visit an animal. What animal would you like to go visit? I think we’ll go to see the lions. To find our way to their house, we will, of course, need to look at a map. Looking at an atlas (a book of maps) of the Kingdom of Animals, you’ll see that there are maps of states separated into regions with an index in the back to help you find each creature.
The lions’ address is P. leo, which might seem like a strange address, but it will help us locate the them just fine. How could you possibly find them with just that simple name in all of creation? All species have this type of name, using a system known as a binomial nomenclature. Each name is made up of two parts (“bi” means two) – the genus (the street that the animal lives on) and the species. The genus is indicated with just the first letter, which is capitalized, and then the whole species name, which is not capitalized. This system was created by a Swedish scientist named Carolus Linnaeus, who you ought to read more about some time.
In the index under P. leo is this entry:
P. leo
Genus: Panthera
Family: Felidae
Order: Carnivora
Class: Mammalia
Phylum: Chordata
You know what genus and family are (You remember the family right? The town where the animal lives.), but what are the order, class, and phylum? And why are the names so weird? The names seem strange because words in binomial nomenclature are often based off of Latin words so that scientists from all over the world can communicate more easily. The phylum is the region where you will find the lions (in plants and fungi, the regions are known as divisions). The class is the state, and the order is the county (like a region in the state). Now, we can go visit the lions – hope they don’t eat us!
Perhaps we should go visit the dogs, instead. Seems safer, don’t you think? The dogs’ address is C. l. familiaris – wait, what? Aren’t there supposed to be two parts to the name? Yes, there normally are, but dogs are a part of a subspecies (a part of a group of animals that could reproduce together but usually don’t, often because they live in different parts of the world). Subspecies use a trinomial nomenclature, with the subspecies name added on the end. The full name written out is Canis lupus familiaris. Canis lupus (or C. lupus) is the wolf, the sister species to the dog. If you would look C. lupus up in the index and find that they are in the same county as the lions – the order Carnivora. They just live a few towns over in the family Canidae on the street Canis. You can think of the subspecies as living in two different houses on a large farm together – make sure you get the right one or you might end up on the menu.
In our world, as opposed to the Kingdoms of Creation, taxonomy, or the classification of creatures, is just a way that scientists organize animals to better understand them. The lions live right with the termites and the grasses on the savanna rather than in their own towns, but it helps scientists to study them if the creatures are classified with like creatures, allowing them to see their similarities and differences more easily. As we said before, the Creator is organized, so understanding the order of creation helps us to understand Him better.