The mammals on this page belong to a few other groups that I have only encountered occasionally. These include sloths in the tropical forests of Central and South America, opossums in the Americas, and some familiar insect-eating mammals from Europe such as hedgehogs and moles. Order Pilosa — Sloths and Anteaters Kingdom: Animalia > Phylum: … Continue reading "Other Mammal Orders"
Read MoreKingdom: Animalia > Phylum: Chordata > Class: Mammalia > Order: Lagomorpha These are small to medium-sized herbivorous mammals found across much of the world, particularly in open landscapes such as grasslands, mountains and deserts. They are characterised by long hind legs adapted for running or jumping and by having two pairs of upper incisors — … Continue reading "Order Lagomorpha — Rabbits, Hares and Pikas"
Read MoreKingdom: Animalia > Phylum: Chordata > Class: Mammalia > Order: Chiroptera This is the second-largest order of mammals after rodents. Bats are the only mammals capable of true powered flight, using wings formed from a thin membrane stretched between elongated fingers. Most bats are nocturnal and use echolocation to navigate and locate prey in the … Continue reading "Order Chiroptera — Bats"
Read MoreKingdom: Animalia > Phylum: Chordata > Class: Mammalia > Order: Primates Primates include monkeys, apes, lemurs and their relatives. They are generally characterised by forward-facing eyes, flexible hands and feet with grasping digits, and relatively large brains compared with other mammals. Most species live in tropical forests and spend much of their time in the … Continue reading "Order Primates — Primates"
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Introduction Slime moulds belong to the phylum Mycetozoa and are placed here within the Kingdom Protozoa. They are remarkable eukaryotic organisms with a life cycle that combines features of both amoebae and fungi. Modern classifications place them within the Amoebozoa, although their exact Linnaean rank varies between classification systems. The phylum Mycetozoa is traditionally divided into three classes: … Continue reading "Phylum Mycetozoa (Slime Moulds)"
Read MoreProtozoa and Chromista are two eukaryotic kingdoms that contain a wide variety of mostly microscopic or structurally simple organisms. Their classification has shifted repeatedly over the past century, and different taxonomic systems still draw the boundaries in different ways. For the purposes of this project, I follow a traditional Linnaean framework, using the same broad … Continue reading "Protozoa and Chromista"
Read MoreThis project began as a way to label and organise my wildlife photographs and identify the species in them. What started as simple naming quickly became more complex, as I realised that grouping organisms is often just as challenging as identifying them. Biological classification is not fixed. Advances in molecular genetics continue to reshape our … Continue reading "Classification of life"
Read MoreKingdom: Animalia > Phylum: Arthropoda > Class: Insecta > Order: Coleoptera Beetles are a group of insects that form the order Coleoptera. They are the largest group of insects with over 300,000 species, a quarter of all known living species. They live in most climates and can survive extreme dry or wet. They can vary … Continue reading "Order Coleoptera"
Read MoreKingdom: Animalia > Phylum: Chordata > Class: Mammalia > Order: Rodentia Rodents are the largest order of mammals, accounting for roughly 40% of all living mammal species. They occur on every continent except Antarctica and occupy a wide range of habitats, from forests and grasslands to deserts and wetlands. They are characterised by a single … Continue reading "Order Rodentia — Rodents"
Read MoreArchaea can live in the most extreme places are often classified according to the environments in which they live: Halophiles are salt-loving, Thermophiles live in extremely high temperatures, Psychrophiles live in extremely cold temperatures and Methanogens are anaerobic and produce methane gas. They can be found from the frozen Artics/Antarchtics to the boiling acidic springs … Continue reading "Kingdom Archaea (Archaebacteria)"
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