Test: The Living world - Taxonomic Categories (April 2) - NEET MCQ

The practice of classifying different organisms into progressively higher biological categories in either a decreasing or an increasing order, from kingdoms to species, and vice versa is known as a taxonomic hierarchy. Order is the assemblage of families which exhibit a few similar characteristics. The similar characters are fewer in number as compared to different genera included in a family. Class includes related orders. The genus includes groups of related species which has more characters in common in comparison to species of other genera. Species are a group of individuals with fundamental similarities. So, X-order, Y-similar, and Z-similar

Species occupies a key position in classification and it represents the lowest taxonomic category. A species is the basic unit of the biological classification of the organisms. According to the definition of the biological species, it is a group of organisms living in a particular area at a particular time and are capable of interbreeding.

As per the definition given by Ernst Mayr in 1964:
"A species is a group of actually or potentially inbreeding populations that are reproductively isolated from other such groups.''
A species may have subgroups, called subspecies or varieties, showing certain distinct features of their own.

• Family is a taxonomic category which contains one or more related genera. All the genera of a family have some common features and they are separable from genera of a related family by important characteristic differences.
• The family Solanaceae includes a number of genera like Solanum, Petunia, Atropa, etc. due to certain similarities.
• They are distinct from the genera of the related family Convolvulaceae such as Convolvulus, Ipomoea.
• In the same way, the family Felidae which includes the genus Panthera of lion, tiger, leopard and genus Felis of cats is distinctly separated from the family Canidae which includes dogs and foxes.

Musca domestica (Housefly) belongs to class-lnsecta of phylum- Arthropoda.

Birds or Aves is the taxonomic class all flying chordates with four-chambered heart and feathers on their body are placed in.

Taxon is a unit of classification which may represent any level of grouping of organisms based on certain easily observable common characteristics.

May (1964) has defined taxon to be a taxonomic group of any rank that is sufficiently distinct to be worthy of being assigned to a definite category.

• Tautonyms are the scientific names in which both generic and specific epithets are same.
• Tautonyms are used in zoological nomenclature.
• However, in the current rules for nomenclature of living organisms, tautonyms are explicitly prohibited.
• Examples of tautonyms are Rattus rattus (Rat), Catla catla (Catla), Gorilla gorilla (Western gorilla), etc.

• The name of a plant order ends with -ales.

  Here's a brief explanation of each suffix:

• -ae: Typically used in the names of families or subfamilies in zoological nomenclature (e.g., "Felidae" for the cat family).
• -ales: Used for the names of plant orders (e.g., "Rosales").
• -idae: Commonly used for the names of animal families in zoology (e.g., "Canidae" for the dog family).
• -aceae: Used for the names of plant families (e.g., "Rosaceae" for the rose family).

Phylum Arthropoda is the largest phylum of kingdom Animalia. It includes the largest number of animals with about 900,000 species.

Phylum Mollusca is the second largest animal phylum, which includes over 60,000 species.

Louis Pasteur coined the term virus before its discovery.
Beijerinick called the virus "contagium vivum fluidum", living infectious fluid.
Ivanowsky discovered the tobacco mosaic virus.
Stanley crystallized the tobacco mosaic virus for the first time.
So, the correct answer is option C.