What Is Taxonomy?

Nature Talk
1

Scientists use taxonomy to classify species. If you’re a Site Curator, you can quite literally edit the taxonomy. So now you (kinda) know what it is, you’ll need to know the groups within it. Here’s the deal (in actual taxonomic order – mostly!):

Domain goes above all other classifications (besides the taxon Life, of course). Humans belong to Eukaryotes, AKA Multicellular Organisms.

Kingdom goes after Domain. Gray Squirrels belong to Animalia, AKA Animals.

Phylum goes after Kingdom. Iguanas belong to Phylum Chordata, AKA animals with backbones.

Class goes after Phylum. Bald Eagles belong to Class Aves, AKA Birds.

Order goes after Class. Jackals belong to Order Carnivora, AKA Mammalian Carnivores.

Suborder goes after Order. Not all taxa have a suborder. Dragonflies belong to Anisoptera.

Parvorder goes after Order and/or Suborder. Cardinals belong to Passerida.

Superfamily goes after Class and sometimes Parvorder and/or Clade. Not all taxa have a superfamily. Sparrows belong to Passeroidea.

Family goes after Superfamily. Grosbeaks belong to Cardinalidae, AKA Cardinals and Allies.

Subfamily goes after Family. Not all taxa have a subfamily. Blow Flies belong to Chrysomyinae.

Tribe goes after Subfamily and/or Family. Not all taxa have a tribe Huron Sachems belong to Hesperiini.

Subtribe goes after Tribe. Not all taxa have a subtribe. Zabulon Skippers belong to Hesperiina, AKA Branded Grass Skippers.

Genus goes after Subtribe and/or Tribe. Baltimore Orioles belong to Icterus, AKA New World Orioles.

Subgenus goes after Genus. Not all taxa have a subgenus. Eastern Gray Squirrels belong to Neosciurus.

Complex goes after Genus. Not all taxa have a complex. Silky Field Ants belong to Formica fusca.

Species goes after Genus and/or Subgenus and/or Complex. Thick-billed Longspurs are Rhynchophanes mccownii.

Subspecies and Variety are the lowest taxonomic ranks. These are abbreviated with either ssp. or var. Not all species have any subspecies or varieties. Shisos are Perilla frutescens var. crispa and Pueos are Asio flammeus ssp. sandwichensis.

This topic only covers SOME of the taxonomic ranks. There are many more, but I excluded a lot of them to simplify it by at least 3%. I hope this topic helped you understand taxonomy at least a little better :slightly_smiling_face:!

2

I apparently always wrongly assumed var stood for variant or variation, oops!

I have mentioned here on the forums once or twice that one thing I do when I come across something new mentioned is to try to see the closest thing taxonomically I have observed. So this is very helpful and I may even print it to have at hand.

3

Taxonomic mnemonics can be helpful:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxonomy_mnemonic

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What is taxonomy? It is a system of classification and organization. For example this is a taxonomic figure.

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Taxonomy of course is most famous for the classification of life, but that isn’t the only thing that uses taxonomy.

Another famous use is family trees showing relatives.

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What Is Taxonomy?
It’s fantasy football for iNatters, except the draft takes decades, and everyone hates the referees

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That’s more or less the zoological ranks. Botanists have section, subsection, series and subseries (rarely using more than 1 or 2 in a genus) between subgenus and species.

Formally zoology only has subspecies. Botany has subspecies, varieties, subvarieties, formae and subformae. Complexes are not formal taxa. Aggregates are roughly the same as complexes.

For a more exhaustive catalog see Taxonomic rank - Wikipedia.

Taxonomy consists of three parts - identifying species (alpha-taxonomy), classifying species (systematics) and nomenclature (giving taxa their correct names according to the various nomenclatural codes).

7

You reminded me of this post from 2025, which I am sharing as another refresher for myself (and maybe it might help others):

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Not all eucaryotes are multicellular.

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I think of systematics and taxonomy as closely related but separate activities. I know, dictionary definitions often conflate the two and even consider them synonyms. However, systematics is the science of discovering the evolutionary relationships of organisms whereas taxonomy is the system by which we name and rank the entities that systematics identifies. There can be different taxonomies but only one true phylogeny. Systematics is science, taxonomy is more of an organizational system.

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Don’t forget about Occlupanid taxonomy!

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You forgot to add section! It goes under genus or subgenus. It’s a grouping of genetically similar species within a genus.

For example, genus Populus has;

Section Populus, section Aigeiros and section Tacamahaca, among others.

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Just to mention: complex is not part of taxonomy. Complexes are used for practical reasons. There is no way to describe a complex as a formal element in taxonomy.
In other words: there are predefined ranks to describe taxons at different levels. Complex is none of them.

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If we didn’t have controversial splits and lumps I’d have nothing interesting to think about most of the winter!

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While it is true that “complex” is not a defined term in taxonomy, it is often used to mean a clade of some sort. iNaturalist uses this definition, if I understand correctly. This is frustrating sometimes. For example, we’d like to put Yellow-faced Bumblee, the nearly identical Fog Bumblebee and a couple other species in a named group only for “yellow-faced” bumblebees. However, any clade that includes all the ones we want also includes other, non-yellow-faced bees. Therefore we call them all “Pyrobombus,” a sugenus, too large a group for what we want. Similarly, there are at least 6 species of viviparous Poa (bluegrasses) in Turkey and additional species elsewhere. They’re easily identified as viviparous (most of the time) but hard to ID to species, especially from typical iNaturalist photos. A “viviparous Poa” complex would be useful! They aren’t all each other’s closest relatives, though, so a group restricted to the viviparous bluegrasses is not a clade. We can call that group a complex – it’s not formally defined – but we can’t make it a complex on iNaturalist.

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And here I’ve been tossing my occlupanids in a drawer or in the trash without ever attempting to ID them.

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A human attempt to understand the world by placing order onto ever evolving organisms.

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That it is an impossible to complete task I understand, but it is helpful, at least for me, to be able to say, “No, this thing is more closely related to xyz than to abc.”

Lacking formal training beyond my IB and the required uni courses (100 and 200 and done), I sometimes feel quite asea.

I get that for those with training in this area, perhaps those who think they have even been forced to consider taxonomy too much, jokes are possible. I hope one day to feel as comfortable.

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Don’t get too concerned about taxonomy or taxonomic disagreements. It’s an artificial system, invented by humans and subject to human biases and petty turf battles. Use it but don’t let it become an obsession. I stopped worrying about taxonomic arguments a long time ago and use the names I’m comfortable with, adapting to other competing nomenclature when necessary.

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No worries, I do not think about it overly, but since most things here share their common names across species, I decided some time ago to concentrate on scientific names as I could, so it is just sort of a natural extension, if that makes sense.

(Taxonomic disagreements I steer far from; they are so far above my skillset.)

I appreciate thinking of things as “siblings” if they are within the same species but variants or ssp. and “cousins” if they are within the same genus but different species. Thinking of families as a form of taxonomy, maybe this makes more sense why my brain is organizing this way.

edit to add: thank you for your encouraging words always. :)

20

That’s brilliant.

Perhaps this is a suitable place to mention another fantastic piece of scientific pastiche, the Snouters (Rhinogradentia): https://tetzoo.com/blog/2021/10/8/snouters-or-rhinogradentians