Classifying Living Things

Classifying Living Things

Putting living things into tidy groups is not very straightforward. Even the dividing line between life and non-life is blurred. Viruses sit on that line, as they are unable to grow and multiply unless they become part of the machinery of an infected cell.

We can reconize the domains, Archaea (Archaebacteria), Eukaryota (Kingdoms), and Eubacteria (Monera).

There are four Eukaryotic Kingdoms, Plants, Animals, Fungi, and Protista, but even here there are fuzzy borders. There is an argument as to where Monera belongs. Some say that it has its own domain, Eubacteria, and others believe that it should belong to the Eukaryotic domain. We have seperated Kingdom Monera into two seperate domains, Archaea and Bacteria. There is also an argument as to where Algae belong: are they Protists or Plants? And what about the strange Slime Molds that sometimes look like tiny animals and sometimes resemble fungi? [CH] {NR}