Kingdom Subdivisions

Moneras, protists, fungi, plants, and animals are the five large kingdoms of living things. As you can image, there are thousands of members in each kingdom. Scientists had to take these five general kingdoms and separate the members into smaller and smaller groups. In other words, we know that a cat and a camel are both animals and therefore are in the same kingdom, but they are not the same creature. Cats and camels are quite obviously different animals. Although they do have some characteristics in common, there are many differences between them.

 

To reduce the kingdoms to the smallest possible groups, a classification pyramid was created. In this pyramid, scientists looked at a variety of characteristics such as coloring, size, diet, habitat, reproduction, and mobility, just to name a few.

The following are the divisions of a classification pyramid.

Kingdom (broadest category with most members)

Phylum

Subphylum

Class

Order

Family

Genus

Species (smallest category with only ONE specific type of member)

 

 

An easy way to remember the subdivisions is to make a pneumonic (saying) for them using the first letter of each of the eight subdivisions. The one we will use in class is

Kangaroo Pouches Sometimes Carry Oats For Grateful Steeds

 

 

When an organism is classified, it is first placed into one of the five large kingdoms. Then as different traits or characteristics of the organism are examined, it is put into smaller and smaller groups until it is in a group all by itself. This group is called a species.

 

Every living organism has its own unique species group. In other words, hamsters and mice are both animals. As you work your way down the classification pyramid, we determine that they are warm blooded, have backbones, eat plants, and are rodents. So far, they are still in the same group, or family. Hamsters, however, are larger than mice, are from a different habitat, and are colored differently. These characteristics move them away from mice and the other members of the rodent family and into their own group, or species called hamster.

Below is the classification pyramid for a wolf.

 

As you can see, we started with the animal kingdom. The next step identified our creature as an animal with a backbone (chordata). By the third step we know the animal in question is a mammal (mammalia). The next layer down identifies this particular animal as a meat eater (carnivora).

 

We are now in a smaller group consisting of meat eating mammals. We have eliminated all insects and the vast number of plant-eating mammals in the world. We still, however, don't know which meat-eating mammal we are trying to classify.

 

The fifth step tells us that the animal is a member of the dog family (canidae). That narrows it down quite a bit, but we still don't know which of the many members of the dog family we have. Is it a coyote, a wolf, a domestic dog, a fox, or a hyena? The last two steps identify the animal as a wild dog and finally, specifically a wolf. By using the classification pyramid and its subdivisions, scientists can identify exact species of any organism.

Classification Facts

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