What is Order?
Order comes from the latin ordo and it is the rank of biological classification ranked above family and underclass. In the 19th century the French equivalent to the latin ordo was the word famille, used in French botanical publications. For this reason when the word ordo was first used it indicated the taxa that would now be given the rank of family. However, the orders in zoology refer to natural groups of the Systema Naturae. Some of the ordinal names created by Linnaeus himself are still in use. There are no strict rules taxonomist need to follow when recognizing an order, some are accepted universally while others are used rarely.
Meet the Anas platyrhynchosThis animal, also knows as duck, belongs to the order anseriformes. Most are birds that range in length and weight. The from of their bills also varies, it benefits the birds depending on its diet. They are fringed with parallel plates at the edges that help them handle the organisms that they feed on like fish and minute plankton.
Some behavioral patterns found in species belonging to the order anseriforms, are so fixed that they are used as taxonomic characteristics, others are pliable and evolve within every few generations. |
|