2.1 Putting life into Categories
Setting: the island of Crete, in the city of Knossos, the realm of King Minos in the time of the Ancient Greeks. The mighty and ferocious Minotaur paces furiously, imprisoned in an intricate labyrinth. Daedalus, our hero, designed this prison maze to trap the half-bull half-man. The labyrinth prevents the beast from escaping and destroying the kingdom.1
In the famous Greek myth, Daedalus dares to enter the labyrinth. It was so well built that he nearly imprisoned himself. Yet he did escape and, according to legend, went on to design many more remarkable structures.
Everyone loves mazes. There are books of mazes of increasing difficulty. There are corn mazes that children traverse in autumn. We love mazes because they challenge us to try and try until we emerge victorious. Or until we fall into the clutches of the mighty minotaur!
You are about to enter a labyrinth. An enormous puzzle that has intrigued students of nature for thousands of years. Approximately 1.6 million living things have been identified and described to science. Some hopeful scientists think there are millions more awaiting discovery. How can we place all living things into an orderly system of classification? And how can we do this in such a way that it simplifies studying these organisms?
Untangling this labyrinth is the work of taxonomists, biologists who place living things into an organized system of categories. In this chapter you will learn why organizing living things into categories makes them easier to study. You will also learn how to use a biological key to determine an organism’s identity and a bit about the history of these efforts. Lastly, you will learn the major categories/taxonomic units of living things and their major characteristics.
Copyright Will Boyd, 2023
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