CHAPTER TWO

2. CLASSIFICATION OF LIVING ORGANISMS

There are a million of organisms on earth, many look similar while others look different in order to recognize them we have to classify them or group them according to the different characteristics.

Formally all living organisms were put into two main groups by CAROLLUS LINAEUS and this two groups were plants groups and animal kingdom. Modern classification has put all living things into 5 kingdoms. This was done by ROBBERT WITTAKER. The 5-kingdom system are as follows

Kingdom Monera: these are of unicellular organism with no true nucleus e.g. bacteria, blue-green algal.
Kingdom protoctista: These are unicellular organism which have a true nucleus containing a nuclear membrane e.g. Amoeba.
Kingdom fungi: these are multicellular organisms with a true nucleus but they do not have chlorophyll and so can not manufacture their own food e.g. mushroom, Yeast, bread mold, puff balls.
Kingdom plantae: these are multicellular organisms which have chlorophyll that is they can manufacture their own food.
Kingdom Animalia: these are multicellular organisms they are animals that cannot make their own food because they have no chlorophyll e.g. Ant, dog, man.

The study of principles of classification is called TAXONOMY or SYSTEMATICS. Carolus Linnaeus divided the kingdom into smaller groups to form a hierarchy as follows

KINGDOM
PHYLUM
CLASS
ORDER
FAMILIES
GENUS
SPECIE

Linnoeus gave each organism a genus name and a specie name. The genus name is written beginning with a capital letter while the specie name is written beginning with a smaller letter. this method of giving organism two names (genus and specie name) is called BINOMEN NOMENCLATURE e.g. human being Homo Sapiens

KINGDOM	COMMON NAME	PHYLUM	CLASS	SCIENTIFIC NAME
Fungi	Mushroom	Mycophyta	mycophyceat	Angus Compestris
Protoctista	Amoeba	Rhizopoda	Sarcodina	Amoeba proteus
Protoctista	Euglena	Euglenophyta	Euglenophyceae	Euglena Viridis
Animalia	Black rat	Chordata	Mammalia	Rattus rattus
Animalia	Dog	Chordata	Mammalia	Canis Familiaris
Animalia	Liver Flue	Platyhelminthes	Trematoda	Fasciola hepatis
Animalia	chicken	Chordata	Aves	Gallus gallus
Animalia	Frog	Chordata	Amphibian	Rena temporaria
Animalia	Cray Fish	Arthropoda	Crustacea	Cabarrus afinis
Animalia	Cockroach	Arthropoda	Insecta	Periplaneta americana
Plantae	Scot pine	coniferophyta	Gymnospermae	Pinus sylvestris
Animalia	House fly	Arthropoda	Insecta	Musca domestica
Animalia	Domestic fowl	Chordata	Aves	Gallus gallus
Protoctista	Amoeba	Rhizopoda	Sarcodina	Amoeba proteus
protoctista	paramecium	ciliophora	ciliata	p.cautatum
Monera	Bacteria	Eubacteria	schizomycete	Ecoll
fungi	mould	Zygomycota	zygomycota	Rhizopus nigricons

Common name	Scientific name
Garden snail	Helix aspersa
crayfish	Cambarus affinis
Earth worm	Lumbricus terrestris
millipede	Julus virgatus
centipede	Cermatia forcepts
Garden spider	Mirada auranta
Black cockroach	Blatta orientalis
Grasshopper	H. nitidulus
Butterfly	Papilon de odocus
Head louse	Pediculus capitis
Body louse	Pediculus corporis
Public louse	Pediculus pubis
Tilapia	Tilapia zilli
Mackerel	Scomber scombrus
Lizard	Agama agama
Paw-paw	Carica papaya
Eru	Gnetus Africanum
Water leaf	Talignum trianglaire
Manyo	Magnifera Indica
Rice	Oryzia satiua
Cassava	Manihot utilisima
Bitter leaf	veronia
Coconut	Coscos nucifera