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4.1: Classification

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    Taxonomy

    Remember Carolus Linnæus (1753) who gave us the foundation for modern taxonomy? We have kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species which are all organized by shared characteristics. Today, biological anthropologists use many more categories than the ones conceived by Linnæus. Refer to the chart to make sense of how life is organized.

    clipboard_e5f51b9b369567608a273c22f249aed11.png
    Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Taxonomic Hierarchy of Primates from Domain to Order with Sibling Groups

    Primate Characteristics

    Members of the Primate Order generally have the following characteristics:

    • Forward-facing eyes
    • Grasping hands and feet
    • Nails instead of claws
    • Large brain-to-body ratio (compared to other animals)
    • Complex social structures
    • Dietary flexibility
    • Parental care and learning

    Clades

    When studying evolution, inheritance, and genetics, ancestry is important; therefore clades are used. A clade is a group of organisms based on their last common ancestors with shared derived traits. Clades are organized by groups like family trees. Here are some of the clades that contain human ancestry:

    • Bilateria
    • Nephrozoa
    • Amniota
    • Sarcopterygii (Lobe-finned fish)
    • Synapsida
    • Mammaliaformes
    • Eutheria
    • Olfactores
    • ParaHoxozoa

    4.1: Classification is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts.

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