Ep.55: Taxonomic Rank

August 8, 2023 Peter Jans

Intro

Hello and Welcome to this episode of the podcast, "The Mnemonic Tree", where we add a single mnemonic leaf to our Tree of Knowledge.

Today's episode takes me back to college where one of the first things we learnt was taxonomy, which is the grouping of living things into nice neat packages according to their traits. Back in those days using an identifying key was essential, but as difficult and as much fun as reading Newtons Principia on your weekend off.

So, on this occasion I bow to technology/google and the myriad of other apps that can now help you with the identifying process.

With that being said, we will begin with a summary from Wikipedia

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Taxonomic_Rank_Graph_-_ru.svg

Wikipedia Summary

In biology, taxonomic rank is the relative level of a group of organisms (a taxon) in an ancestral or hereditary hierarchy. A common system of biological classification (taxonomy) consists of species, genus, family, order, class, phylum, kingdom, and domain. While older approaches to taxonomic classification were phenomenological, forming groups on the basis of similarities in appearance, organic structure and behaviour, methods based on genetic analysis have opened the road to cladistics.

A given rank subsumes under it less general categories, that is, more specific descriptions of life forms. Above it, each rank is classified within more general categories of organisms and groups of organisms related to each other through inheritance of traits or features from common ancestors. The rank of any species and the description of its genus is basic; which means that to identify a particular organism, it is usually not necessary to specify ranks other than these first two.[1]

Consider a particular species, the red fox, Vulpes vulpes: the specific name or specific epithet vulpes (small v) identifies a particular species in the genus Vulpes (capital V) which comprises all the "true" foxes. Their close relatives are all in the family Canidae, which includes dogs, wolves, jackals, and all foxes; the next higher major rank, the order Carnivora, includes caniforms (bears, seals, weasels, skunks, raccoons and all those mentioned above), and feliforms (cats, civets, hyenas, mongooses). Carnivorans are one group of the hairy, warm-blooded, nursing members of the class Mammalia, which are classified among animals with backbones in the phylum Chordata, and with them among all animals in the kingdom Animalia. Finally, at the highest rank all of these are grouped together with all other organisms possessing cell nuclei in the domain Eukarya.

The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature defines rank as: "The level, for nomenclatural purposes, of a taxon in a taxonomic hierarchy (e.g. all families are for nomenclatural purposes at the same rank, which lies between superfamily and subfamily)."[2]

Extracted from: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxonomic_rank#:~:text=There%20are%20seven%20main%20taxonomic,a%20synonym%20for%20dominion%20(lat.]

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Biological_classification_L_Pengo_vflip.svg

Mnemonic

Taxonomic Rank – Dumb Kids Play Catch Over Family’s Grave Stone

(Picture two kids with oversized Baseball mitts playing catch over a very large gravestone)

1. Domain

2. Kingdom

3. Phylum

4. Class

5. Order

6. Family

7. Genus

8. Species

Five Fun Facts

1. A taxon or plural taxa is a group of organisms which a taxonomist decides belong together.

Now I know it’s been a long time since I studied this at school but I thought taxonomy was the study of organisms and how you phylum!

2. Taxa can be big or small. For example, the giraffe taxon is small, whereas the beetle taxon is quite large.

3. These days biological classification is mostly supposed to be done according to evolutionary (phylogenetic) relationships, so far as these are known.

4. Scientists used to write the description of each new species in Latin. On 1 January 2012, the International Botanical Congress changed this to allow English as well. The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature recommends choosing a language that is widely used, and that is used in the places where the species live.

5. The scientific classification of humans is as follows: