Living world

• Biology is the science of life forms and living processes.
• The taxonomical hierarchy can be illustrated with suitable examples of a plant and an animal.
• The living world comprises an amazing diversity of living organisms.
• Early man could easily perceive the difference between inanimate matter and living organisms.
• Early man deified some of the inanimate matter (wind, sea, fire etc.) and some among the animals and plants.
• A common feature of all such forms of inanimate and animate objects was the sense of awe or fear that they evoked.
• The description of living organisms including human beings began much later in human history.
• Societies which indulged in anthropocentric view of biology could register limited progress in biological knowledge.
• Systematic and monumental description of life forms brought in, out of necessity, detailed systems of identification, nomenclature and classification.
• The biggest spin off of such studies was the recognition of the sharing of similarities among living organisms both horizontally and vertically.
• All present day living organisms are related to each other and also to all organisms that ever lived on this earth, was a revelation which humbled man and led to cultural movements for conservation of biodiversity.
• In the following chapters of this unit, you will get a description, including classification, of animals and plants from a taxonomist’s perspective.
• Biology is the story of life on earth and the evolution of living organisms on earth.
• In the scientific name of mango, Mangifera represents the genus while indica, is a particular species, or a specific epithet.
• Biological names are generally in Latin and written in italics.
• Nomenclature or naming is necessary to refer to organisms we are talking about.
• Biological names are Latinised or derived from Latin irrespective of their origin.
• As we explore new areas, and even old ones, new organisms are continuously being identified.
• Living organisms are self-replicating, evolving and self-regulating interactive systems capable of responding to external stimuli.
• All living organisms, present, past and future, are linked to one another by the sharing of the common genetic material, but to varying degrees.
• Scientific names are based on agreed principles and criteria, which are provided in International Code for Botanical Nomenclature (ICBN) for plants and International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) for animals.
• The scientific name of mango is written as Mangifera indica.
• Each name has two components – the Generic name and the specific epithet, which is known as Binomial nomenclature.
• The number of species that are known and described range between 1.7-1.8 million, which is referred to as biodiversity or the number and types of organisms present on earth.
• Ernst Mayr, the Harvard University evolutionary biologist who has been called ‘The Darwin of the 20th century’, was one of the 100 greatest scientists of all time.
• Mayr joined Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences in 1953 and retired in 1975, assuming the title Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology Emeritus.
• Throughout his nearly 80-year career, his research spanned ornithology, taxonomy, zoogeography, evolution, systematics, and the history and philosophy of biology.
• Mayr almost single-handedly made the origin of species diversity the central question of evolutionary biology that it is today.
• Mayr also pioneered the currently accepted definition of a biological species.
• Mayr was awarded the three prizes widely regarded as the triple crown of biology: the Balzan Prize in 1983, the International Prize for Biology in 1994, and the Crafoord Prize in 1999.
• Taxonomy is not something new.
• Both the words in a biological name, when handwritten, are separately underlined, or printed in italics to indicate their Latin origin.
• Insects are recognisable concrete objects which can be classified, and thus were given a rank or category.
• Each rank or taxon, in fact, represents a unit of classification.
• Systematics is the branch of study that deals with the relationships among organisms.
• Characterisation, identification, classification and nomenclature are the processes that are basic to taxonomy.
• External and internal structure, along with the structure of cell, development process and ecological information of organisms are essential and form the basis of modern taxonomic studies.
• Taxonomic categories and hierarchy can be illustrated by an example.
• Taxonomy is the process of classification.
• The first word in a biological name represents the genus while the second component denotes the specific epithet.