Classification and Naming of Living Organisms

There are lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of different types of organisms out there. Taxonomy attempts to organize all of these organisms into increasingly smaller & smaller groups until you are left with a group of all the same type of organism (namely, a species).

Organisms first get classified into one of five KINGDOMS. Each kingdom has certain defining characteristics. The kingdoms, which are a large & varied group of organisms, then get divided up into smaller subgroups (called phyla), which in tern get subdivided, and so on ...

The modern system of naming gives each living thing 7 names. Each name is a little more specific than the one before it. The categories are (in order from least to most specific):

Kingdom | Phylum | Class | Order | Family | Genus | Species

Memory trick to learn the order - remember
"Kings Play Chess On Fine Glass Surfaces." or "King Philip Came Over For Good Spaghetti."
(The first letter of each word in the sentence is the first letter of each classification group & they're listed in the correct order.)

Have you ever thought about why we name things at all? If you have, you probably realized that names are very important for communicating information to others. If we all created our own names for plants or animals, we'd have no clue what anyone else was talking about. What about rolly-poly bugs? People in others areas may think of them as pill bugs or sow bugs. Inconsistencies like these led to the creation of a system of naming things that allows scientists all over the world to communicate more precisely.

Carolus Linnaeus 1707-1778

Carolus Linnaeus, a Swedish botanist, developed a classification system for life forms during the 1700's. It is his system, with modifications, that we use today. After experimenting with several approaches, Linnaeus refined and standardized a binomial (double) naming system. He designated one Latin name to indicate the genus, and one as a "shorthand" name, or species epithet, for the species. Linnaeus picked Latin because it was the universal language of science.

Any species known to science is named with a double name in the format:

Genus species or Genus species

The science of naming organisms is called taxonomy. While it can get very complicated, the following basic rules apply:

• No two different species can have the same combination of genus and specific names.
• No species is given more than one combination of genus and specific name.
• Genus name is always capitalized & italicized or underlined.
• Specific epithet is not capitalized, but is always italicized or underlined.
  

Where are we in the Name Game?

Taxonomists have been relatively busy since Linnaeus' time. Over 1.5 million species have been named and described. However, it is estimated that as many as tens of millions of species have yet to be discovered. Many of these are in remote parts of the world-in the Mayan forests of Belize and the mountains of Burma.

source: http://pc65.frontier.osrhe.edu/hs/science/bkingdm.htm