History of taxonomy

◦ In teams of 3 or 4 members, make a timeline with the 12 most

relevant facts in the history of taxonomy.
◦ Do it in chronological order (from the oldest to the most recent)
◦ Synthesize the information Who? When? Fact
◦ Include a drawing per fact
What is Taxonomy?

◦ Taxonomy is the science of naming,

describing and classifying organisms and
includes all plants, animals and
microorganisms of the world.
History of taxonomy
Theophrastus 320 B. C
Aristotle 350 B.C. In his book De Historia
He observed 520 species Plantarum he describes the
of animals and anatomy of the plants and
organized them into two classifies them according to
categories based on their average size and
similarities in structure structure
and appearance:

Mexicas (1400-1521 AC)

acquired extensive knowledge of plants and animals, which is
reflected in the Nahua names, formed by two descriptive
phonetic elements and allusive to the properties of the
organism, for example: cempasúchil ( zempoaxuchitl , twenty
flowers) and axolotl ( axotl , monster of water).
Carl Von Linné (1707-1778)
◦He was a Swedish naturalist who laid the
foundations for the classification of living
beings that is used today. Ordered each agency
in taxonomic categories, ranging from general
to particular: Kingdom, Class, Order, Family,
Gender and Species.
◦In order to avoid confusion among the
scientific community, he decided to assign
each species a unique name from a universal
system: the binomial nomenclature or
scientific name of a species is composed of
the names of the genus and the specific
epithet. 
 ◦ Ernst Haeckel (1866)
◦ When scientists began studying unicellular organisms, they classified them either as plants, or
as animals. As more organisms were identified, they realized that it was not always possible to
make this distinction, since they did not fully share common characteristics to those
kingdoms. To solve this problem, Haeckel created a third kingdom called Protista, where he
located all unicellular organisms.

Herbert Copeland (1956)

During the following decades, scientists learned more about the enormous
quantity and diversity of microorganisms. They discovered that there are
differences between the cells of organisms: some have nuclei and organelles
(eukaryotic cells), while others lack them (prokaryotic cells). Thus, Copeland
proposed a new kingdom, the Monera, where it grouped the bacteria, because
they are all prokaryotes.
 Robert H. Whittaker (1969)
Before Whittaker it was considered that bacteria and fungi belonged to the plant
kingdom. Whittaker proposed a classification scheme with five kingdoms when
considering the following criteria: the cell type (prokaryotes and eukaryotes), the
level of organization (unicellular or multicellular), the type of nutrition
(autotrophic or heterotrophic) and the type of reproduction (sexual or asexual).
Proposes the Fungi Kingdom as the fifth

Carl Woese (1977)

Woese, at the head of a group of researchers, proposes the
modification of the Monera Kingdom by finding that bacteria
have different types of metabolism. He proposes to divide
them into two large groups, which he named Bacteria and
Archaea.
Ernst Walter Mayr (1990)
Mayr opposes Woese's classification, since it does not recognize the
prokaryotic-eukaryotic "natural" dichotomy established by the type of cells
that living beings possess. Mayr proposes to divide the biological world into
two: Prokaryota Domain and Eukaryota Domain, retaking the terms
previously coined by Chatton.

Thomas Cavalier-Smith (1998)

His proposal is six kingdoms.
Domains
◦ Activity #6

◦ In your notebook describe the main

characteristics of the 3 domains, and
mention its corresponding kingdoms
(take the information from the link
shared on g. classroom)