Talk:Biological classification/Archive 2

Two plus six equals seven
"Simply knowing the two-part scientific name makes it possible to determine the other six layers." What six layers?
 * I don't see this on the page. Lousyd 23:32, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't understand... 2 plus six equals eight! But I'm only 11.. What I don't understand is COUNTLESS!! -Helen

Merge
Because of someone who thinks this page needs to be merged here, Classifying Organisms is suggested to be merged here. I want to vote to oppose it!Tcatron565
 * In it's present incarnation, I think a redirect is more appropriate, since most of the content (other than the textbook-esk intro) is duplicated. --Hansnesse 03:44, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment I got to this page from the #135 on the "list of most linked pages" (16213 links). If any merge is done, it had better be done right! Walkerma 05:28, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Classifying Organisms should be a redirect to here (and so should Classifying organisms). If there is any content not there, it should be considered for inclusion in this article. - UtherSRG (talk) 11:52, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

What is a red tailed hawk
The above topic was posted by
 * Howdy and welcome the Wikipedia! The best bet for questions is usually the Where to ask a question page (this page being mostly about what should go into the article, rather than specific questions about things), but with regard to your specific question, you may want to check out the Red-tailed Hawk article here on Wikipedia.  I will post the same information on your talk page.  --Hansnesse 22:46, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Hominidae
I removed the following from the section on Terminations of names, since I think it is somewhat misleading... Perhaps a better example could be found. My understanding is that Hominidae once referred to the genus Homo, but now can include great apes (thus Hominin is prefered for group which only includes humans (which Wikipedia lists as a tribe, not a genus).
 * * Forming a name based on a generic name may be not straightforward. For example, the Latin "homo" has the genitive "hominis", thus the genus "Homo" (human) is in the Hominidae, not "Homidae".

Thoughts or clarifications? --TeaDrinker 19:32, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I restored it. The number of genera in a family does not make it any less valid. The point was how names are formed using latinate formation, not about what is in the grouping. - UtherSRG (talk) 19:35, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks, re-reading it, I see your point. It appears I had misread it.  --TeaDrinker 19:39, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

The Mnemonic
The mnemonic right there at the top seems a bit out of place. If you need to remember the order, you can make something up, find it somewhere else, or see the link provided later on in the page to the English Mnemonics wikipedia page. Can I remove the mnemonic section? Pretty please? - Lousyd


 * Yes, go ahead. They're silly, and they also have a strange way of breeding, all too prolifically (just deleted two more . . .) - MPF 08:59, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Changes of rank
Under "Examples", the article says "Higher taxa and especially intermediate taxa are prone to revision as new information about relationships is discovered." It then gives an example contrasting the mammalian subclasses and infraclasses used by McKenna & Bell with the traditional ones. While it's true that "new information about relationships" caused this change by adding more nodes, the statement could be misleading by implying that the newer use of Theriiformes and Holotheria imply a different understanding of mammals' phylogeny. But the traditional use of Theria and Eutheria have not gone away. McKenna & Bell still use these taxa, they've just moved them down to lower ranks to accomodate more nodes between Mammalia and Theria. Is there a better way we can phrase this?

Cephal-odd 14:55, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Whither the superfamily?
While the discussion of the problems of creating a taxonomic structure that maps to biological and evolutionary reality are interesting, I would also like to see some more discussion of the history of classification. For example, I grew up with the KPCOFGS acronym, but now I routinely see the Superfamly cited. When did it come into wide use, and in response to what classification problem? Thanks!

ablock 07:05, 08 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Good comment. I was just reading something about this, and will see what I can find.  This comes, in botany at least, from some specific reclassification scheme done in the past 20 years.  KP Botany 18:35, 8 December 2006 (UTC)


 * There is a number of intermediary ranks: their names are formed from the main rank name and a prefix -- super-, sub-, and infra- (the latter is never applied to the taxa of the family level or lower). Superfamilies are widely used in insect taxonomy. In any case it is just a convention. All ranks are arbitrary, only the groups themselves and the nested pattern of their relationships are somewhat real. Alexei Kouprianov 07:19, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Subfamily (and for that matter, Superfamily, and others) Subfamily is a redirect to Family (biology), but the term is not mentioned in the target article, in violation of WP policy on relationships between Rdrs and their targets. There should be a section on the Subfamily concept, or on both Subfamilies and Superfamilies. IMO it would in fact be valuable to have a list of lks to examples (whether articles or mentions of these two intermediate levels), which are bound to be of some value in getting a grip on what kinds of odd situation call for their use. Presumably this would work well with sub- and super- ranks besides the -family ones. --Jerzy•t 20:11, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Rank free classification
I see no activity here for the past 3 months... I would like to add a short section explaining the fact that the inclusiveness of each Linnean "rank" (e.g. class, order, family) is arbitrarily defined. This fact is one of the principles behind the Phylocode initiative (and fully consistent with Evolutionary Biology), and thus ought to be added to the Classification article, regardless of the actual status of the Phylocode project. This is essentially the same comment made above by Alexi, and higher-up under "Modern Developments". Any objections? Thanks TxMCJ 21:27, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Eukarya?
I do believe that the correct spelling for that word is "Eukaryota."


 * They're both correct. Also Eucarya and Eucaryota, but these variants are less common now. Compare Nemertea versus Nemertina for ribbon-worms. Or Kelts (Greek) versus Celts (Latin). Hey, if that's confusing, check out all the alternatives for Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages! Gnostrat 03:52, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 20:04, 2 May 2016 (UTC)