Why We Use Latin for Taxonomy
We have a lot of species on earth, about 8.7
million plant and animal species is the latest estimate. Some think if
you add in things such as lichens, mushrooms and bacteria the total number of
all living things would be closer to 11.3 million species. In scientific
terms, ‘a heck of a lot’.
How do we keep all this organized in a way we
can better understand and study the diversity of life? This is where taxonomy
comes in. Carl Linnaeus, a Swedish botanist, is regarded as the father of
taxonomy. Carl developed a system known as Linnaean taxonomy in which
organisms could be categorized. He also developed the scientific binomial
nomenclature for naming organisms using Latin which we still use today. Why
Latin? Using Latin was clever because people from different countries using
different languages can communicate accurately as to a specific species without
confusion.
In 1735 Linnaeus published Systema Naturae,
the tenth edition of this book was published in 1758 and that edition
is considered the starting point of the International Code of Zoological
Nomenclature.
Now here is the
interesting thing about Carl’s taxonomy, it’s frozen in time, there is no
before and there is no after. Carl recognized the need to have a systematic
method of classification for plant and animal life so we can be organized about
it all and kudos to him for coming up with his system. At the time he
assumed species did not evolve so there was no need to show lineage. He explicitly
recognized the hierarchical nature of species relationships, but still viewed
species as fixed according to a divine plan.
The expansion of Linnaeus’s taxonomy system to
include lineage became necessary once Paleontologists and Paleoanthropologists
(though not called that at the time) started to discover fossils like
dinosaurs. Then suddenly it dawned on people, hey evolution.
A lot of people think that Charles Darwin came
up with the theory of evolution but several individuals were postulating the
idea before him, even going back to ancient Greece and pre-Socratic times. In
1794 Erasmus Darwin, a renowned English physician and Charles Darwin’s
grandfather, penned a work titled ‘Zoonomia’. In it he theorizes and
describes one of the first modern theories on animal evolution. However,
Charles Darwin did bring the concept of evolution and its processes to the
masses with his 1859 book “On the Origin of Species”.
With the acceptance of evolution as a scientific fact the Linnaean system has progressed to a system of modern biological classification based on the evolutionary relationships between organisms, both living and extinct.
Anthropology is concerned with man and his
evolutionary legacy. In Linnaean
taxonomy, using the binomial nomenclature to classify modern man it is written
as Homo sapiens. With binomial
nomenclature the first word is always capitalized and the second word is
not. A short hand would be to write H.
sapiens. So, you commonly see H. neanderthalensis written for Neanderthals,
etc.
Also, the first word designates the genus and
the second word designates the species. Each genus may have multiple or even
several species.
Typically, in secondary education you get a seven-point
taxonomy for Modern Man.
1. Kingdom – Animalia
2. Phylum – Chordata
3. Class – Mammalia
4. Order – Primates
5. Family – Hominidae
6. Genus – Homo
7. Species - sapiens
However, given the great diversity of life now and through the ages a more expanded taxonomy for scientific study was developed. Here is the full taxonomy for modern man.
1. Kingdom - Animalia
- Subkingdom - Eumetazoa
- Clade - Bilateria
- Clade - Nephrozoa
- Superphylum - Deuterostomia
- Phylum - Chordata
- Clade - Craniata
- Subphylum - Vertebrata
- Infraphylum - Gnathostomata
- Clade - Eugnathostomata
- Clade - Teleostomi
- Superclass - Tetrapoda
- Clade - Reptiliomorpha
- Clade - Amiota
- Clade - Synapsida
- Clade - Mammaliaformes
- Class - Mammalia
- Clade - Eutheria
- Infraclass - Placentalia
- Clade - Exafroplacentalia
- Magnorder- Boreoeutheria
- Superorder - Euarchontoglires
- Grandorder - Euarchonta
- Miorder - Primatomorpha
- Order - Primates
- Suborder - Haplorhini
- Infraorder - Simiformes
- Pavorder - Catarrhini
- Superfamily - Hominoidea
- Family - Hominidae
- Subfamily - Homininae
- Tribe – Hominini
- Sub Tribe - Homininia
- Genus - Homo
- Species - sapiens
- Subspecies - sapiens sapiens
Don't worry I am not going to test you on this.
Tribal
If you look at the above taxonomy, the human
legacy starts at number 32 which is classified as the Tribe - Hominini. For
humans this is when the first species in our human lineage appeared after the
split with our last common ancestor between us and the chimpanzee. Every
species in the human legacy is called a hominin.
If you would really like to get in the weeds on our tribal classification this is a great article.
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