Life+Today.+Classifying+Species

{$page} include component="page" wikiName="wikids" page="_menuoptions" < Prev + More > Next include component="page" wikiName="wikids" page="_close" In Linnaeus' time, people already talked about __species__. A species is sort or kind of plant or animal, all of the same type, like 'horses'.

People also already talked about groups of animals that were similar - like horses and donkeys and zebras. They called a group a __genus__. Lots of groups aren't called 'genuses', but __genera__.

They didn't have any system for grouping genera together. It was rather like having books grouped into books on 'Trains', but no group for 'Transport' or for 'Non-fiction' or for 'Children's Books'.



Linnaeus started with species and grouped them into genera. He then grouped genera into __orders__. Orders were grouped into __classes__ and classes were grouped into __kingdoms__.