Taxonomy

Taxonomy is a method of categorizing living organisms. The modern system of taxonomy was developed by Swedish Biologist Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778). In recent years, the system has been replaced by phylogeny.

Of note, Linnaeus was a Christian naturalist who was looking for the "created kinds" that creationists believe God made in Genesis. He expected to find a "grove" of trees, each with its own branches. What he found instead was that all of the branches of animals he knew could be traced back to a single trunk. He had no explanation for this finding; that would not come until Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859.

Taxonomic Ranks

• Domain
• Kingdom
• Phylum
• Subphylum
• Class
• Cohort
• Order
• Suborder
• Infraorder
• Superfamily
• Family
• Genus
• Species
• Subspecies