Animals, Plants, and… Minerals
§Linnaeus broke the world’s species into Animal, Plant,
and “Mineral” Kingdoms
–Kingdom were made up of Classes
–Classes were made up of Orders
–Orders were split into Genera (singular for this is genus)
–Genera were divided into species (singular for this is species)
§Sometimes he allowed an unnamed rank of taxa at a lower
level (these became
“varieties” in the plant Kingdom)
§Subdivisions that have been added since then:
–Phyla (singular: phylum)
–Superclasses
–Superorders
–Infarorders
–Families
–Superfamilies
–Tribes
§Additional subdivisions used for species rich
categories, for example Beetles use
Infarorders