King Phillip, Come Out For Goodness Sake!

Kingdom: Most textbooks now list 6 kingdoms -- animal, plant, protists (amoebas and such), fungi, bacteria, and archaebacteria (also called extremophiles). Phylum: There are more than 30 phyla in the Animal Kingdom and 9 or 10 in the Plant Kingdom. Phylum Chordata is the one we're most familiar with -- it includes humans, birds, fish, and all other vertebrates (animals with a backbone). Phylum Arthropoda includes insects, spiders, lobsters, etc. Arthropods have segmented bodies with the segments grouped into two or three distinct sections. They have hard external skeletons, or exoskeletons, that are shed and regenerated as the animals grow. Class: The various phyla are divided into classes -- Phylum Chordata is divided into the classes: amphibians, birds, mammals, reptiles and fish. Order: Scientific groupings don't follow hard and fast rules. Once we get to the "order" of a living thing, there sometimes begins to be some disagreement about where it belongs. You may find that different sources group creatures in different orders or families. And you may find that a creature has its order or family changed as more information is learned. Family: The family is a relatively new scientific concept. It is a way scientists group similar genuses together. This is not the "mom, dad, brother and sister" type of family! Genus: Two or more species that share unique body structures or other characteristics are considered to be closely related and are placed together in a genus. Sometimes a genus might include only a single species if there is nothing else in the world that has similarities with it. The genus is the first part of the scientific name of a species. The genus is always spelled with a capital letter and in italics. Species: A species can be defined as a group of individuals that breed together to produce fertile offspring. Individuals of a species cannot breed with other such groups. It is sometimes possible for different species to breed, but the offspring will be sterile. A mule is the sterile offspring of a donkey and a horse, and the mule can never mate and reproduce itself. The species is the second part of the scientific name of a species. The species is always spelled with a lower case letter and in italics.

6 Animal Kingdoms Animal Kingdom: Within the animal kingdom there are 6 categories of animals. To break it down further you have vertebrates (phylum chordata) and invertebrates (phylum anthropoda). Within the animal kingdom the 6 categories of animals are mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians, and anthropods. An animals is a mammal if it drinks it's mother's milk when it is a baby and has hair on its body. An animal is a bird if it has feathers. An animal is a fish if it has gills, scales, and fins on its body. An animal is a reptile if they have scaly skin. They are also cold blooded and are born on land. An animal is an amphibian if it is born in water and breath with gills like fish. When they grow up, they develop lungs and can live on land. An animal is an anthropod if they have more than four jointed legs. This includes inspects, spiders and crustaceans. Under anthropods, there are 11 more animal classifications which divide the anthropod phylum up even more. The Plant Kingdom: Plants are living organisms that are broken down into at least 12 phylum. Plant organisms that make up this kingdom consist of trees, flowers, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, moses, and green algae. Chlorophyta and Charophyta represent green algae. Marchantiophyta, Anthocerotophyta, and Bryophyta represent the Bryophytes. Lycopodlophyta and Pteridophyta represent Pteridophytes (mosses and ferns). Cycadophyta, Ginkgophyta, Pinophyta, Gnetophyta, and Madnollophyta represent seed plants. The Fungi Kingdom fungus is neither a plant nor animal but that do have some characteristics of each. They cannot move like an animal, they consume organic matter and they don't have chlorophyll like plants do. There are various types of fungus which include mushrooms, toadstools, molds, even rust can be considered a mold.