The Living World Test - 2

Taxonomy (taxis-arrangement, nomos-law) is defined as the science dealing with identification, nomenclature and classification of organisms. The term taxonomy was given by de Candolle (1813).

Some important rules of binomial nomenclature are given as following:
(i) Biological names are either derived from Latin language or are Latinised.
(ii) The first word in a biological name represents the genus while the second word represents the species.
(iii) Both the words, in a biological name, when handwritten, are separately underlined, or printed in italics to indicate their Latin origin.
(iv) The generic epithet starts with a capital letter while, the specific epithet starts with a small letter. It can be illustrated with the example of Homo sapiens, Pisum sativum, Panthera tigris, Mangifera indica, etc.
(v) Name of the author appears after the specific epithet i.e., at the end of the biological name and is written in an abbreviated form, e.g., Mangifera indica line. It indicates that this species was first described by Linnaeus.

• First step in taxonomy is identification of the organism.
• Identification is the finding of correct name and place of an organism according to some approved system of classification.
• Manuals, floras, monographs, catalogues keys, etc. are various taxonomic aids, which are used the identification of an organism.
• Identification is follower by nomenclature and classification of organisms.

• Trinomial nomenclature is employed to name the subspecies. In classification, the subspecies is a category below the species.
• The subspecific name is also a Latin Iatinised word and follows the name of the species to while it belongs.

For example: The specific name of the hours crow, which occurs throughout India, Pakistan, Burma and Sri Lanka is Corvus splendens. The house crows of India and Pakistan, Burma and Sri Lanka differ with each other in minute morphological features and are thus, separate as distinct subspecies. The Indian and Pakistani house or has been assigned the subspecific name Corvus splended splendens, the Burmese house crow is Corvus plended Insolens and the Sri Lankan house crow is Corvus splended protegatus. Mostly in botanical literature, the third name represents variety whereas in zoological literature, the third name represents subspecies.

• Binomial nomenclature was developed by Linnat (Philosophia Botanica. 1751). Linnaeus described 5900 species of plants in his book Species Plantarum (17 and 4326 species of animals in his book Systema Naturae (1758).
• A natural system for classification of seed plants proposed by Bentham and Hooker (1862 -1883) in the three-volume treatise ‘Genera Plantarum'
• Pliny the Elder (28-79 AD) introduced the first system artificial classification. In his book ‘Historia Naturalis' (AD), he mentioned over 1,000 economic plants with abokve 2,000 items.

Objective and functions of classification include:
(i) Recognition and complete description of different species
(ii) Development of a system for easy identification of various species.
(iii) Formulating a scheme of hierarchial grouping of species on the basis of their similar or correlated characters. 
(iv) To establish relationships on the basis of resemblance and differences between organisms.

• The original scientific names were taken from Latin and Greek languages.
• New names are now derived either from Latin language or are latinised.
• This is because latin language is dead and therefore, it will not change in form or spellings with the passage of time.

Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778) was a Swedish naturalist, who is known as the father of taxonomy.

Zoological name of the common Indian frog is Rana tigrina.

Bufo melanostictus refers to Indian road.

Both belong to class - Amphibia of phylum - Chordata.

Linnaeus put forward an artificial system of classification which was mainly based upon morphological characters of plants.