JULY 17,
2019
A koala
bear isn't actually a bear, it's a marsupial. Whales aren't fish, they're mammals.
Tomatoes aren't vegetables, they're fruit. Almost
nothing is actually
a nut. Peanuts, Brazil nuts, cashews, walnuts, pecans and almonds:
none of them are really nuts (for the record, peanuts are legumes, Brazils and
cashews are seeds, and the others are all droops). Hazelnuts and chestnuts are
the exception: they are the elite, the "true" nuts.
We've all
heard facts like this before. But they are more than just ammunition for pub
conversation. They reflect an area of science known as biological taxonomy, the
classification of organisms into different groups. At the
core of this area lies the notion of the species. The basic idea is very
simple: that certain groups of organisms have a special connection to each
other. There is something that you and I have in common—we are both human
beings. That is, we are members of the same species.
Biological
taxonomy's core aim is to sort all of the organisms of the world into species.
Of course, this job really matters, both inside biology and out. The task of
evolutionary biology is to track the evolution and development (and eventual
extinction) of species. Outside of biology, conservation programmes routinely
put various species on "endangered" lists, and urge us to donate
money to stop them dying out. In order for any of this to make sense, we need
to know how many species there are, and what a species even is.
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