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The hierarchy of biological classification's eight major taxonomic ranks. A genus contains one or more species. Minor intermediate ranks are not shown. A species (pl.: species) is a population of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. [1]
Over 1.5 million living animal species have been described, of which around 1.05 million are insects, over 85,000 are molluscs, and around 65,000 are vertebrates. It has been estimated there are as many as 7.77 million animal species on Earth. Animal body lengths range from 8.5 μm (0.00033 in) to 33.6 m (110 ft).
The scientific work of deciding how to define species has been called microtaxonomy. [26] [27] [20] By extension, macrotaxonomy is the study of groups at the higher taxonomic ranks subgenus and above, [20] or simply in clades that include more than one taxon considered a species, expressed in terms of phylogenetic nomenclature. [28]
Species evenness is the relative number of individuals of each species in a given area. [181] Species richness [182] is the number of species present in a given area. Species diversity [183] is the relationship between species evenness and species richness. There are many ways to measure biodiversity within a given ecosystem.
A lion (Panthera leo).Lions are an example of charismatic megafauna, a group of wildlife species that are especially popular in human culture.. Wildlife refers to undomesticated animals and uncultivated plant species which can exist in their natural habitat, but has come to include all organisms that grow or live wild in an area without being introduced by humans. [1]
Also called functionalism. The Darwinian view that many or most physiological and behavioral traits of organisms are adaptations that have evolved for specific functions or for specific reasons (as opposed to being byproducts of the evolution of other traits, consequences of biological constraints, or the result of random variation). adaptive radiation The simultaneous or near-simultaneous ...
Fauna comes from the name Fauna, a Roman goddess of earth and fertility, the Roman god Faunus, and the related forest spirits called Fauns.All three words are cognates of the name of the Greek god Pan, and panis is the Modern Greek equivalent of fauna (πανίς or rather πανίδα).
Wikispecies is a wiki-based online project supported by the Wikimedia Foundation.Its aim is to create a comprehensive open content catalogue of all species; the project is directed at scientists, rather than at the general public.