It's Almost Tax Day: Here's How Nature Files Its Taxas
In honor of April 18, we take a look at how science organizes and names species—sometimes with a sense of humor.
With U.S. tax day approaching on April 18, Weird Animal Question of the Week is taking author’s prerogative to ask “How does nature file its taxas?”
"The scientific practice of arranging and naming all living organisms into groups" is called taxonomy, says Chris Mah, a marine invertebrate zoologist and taxonomist at Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.
Formalized by 18th-century naturalist Carl Linnaeus, taxonomy organizes all living things into seven categories called taxa, ranging from broadest (kingdom, one of which is Animalia) to the most specific (species, like Homo sapiens). (Read more about Linnaeus, "the name giver.")
The system groups them based on how closely related they are to each other, Mah says.
When identifying a new species, taxonomists look at its appearance, structure, and genetics, often comparing it with museum specimens.
The new species gets a formal Latin or Greek name, which generally has two words and begins with its genus name—genus being the taxa
