unit 1 lesson 3

evolution-

A theory that the various types of animals and plants have their origin in other preexisting types and that the distinguishable differences are due to modifications in successive generations

How do scientists create scientific names?

Answer: A scientific name has two parts, genus and species. Scientists give a scientific name to an organism based on its classification. When making up a scientific name, scientists usually use Latin or Greek words that describe the organism.

How do scientific names differ from common names?

Answer: Each organism may have many common names, and one common name can be used for many different organisms. A particular species has one, and only one, unique scientific name.

What does an organism's scientific name tell us about the organism?

Answer: Since an organism's scientific name shows its genus and species, we can use that information to figure out what other organisms are closely related to it, and how it evolved from other organisms. If we can translate the Latin or Greek words used to create the name, we might be able to learn something about what the organism looks like, where it lives, its diet, and perhaps its behaviors.

What are genus and species ?

Genus and species are both commonly used for scientific names.

What ways are the scientific names written in?

Latin and Greek descriptive terms are usually used for scientific names. (mostly latin)'

characteristic-

a feature of an organism; something you can observe about an organism

genetic-

a genetically determined condition or characteristic

species-

a group of organisms that share similar characteristics and can mate with each other to produce offspring

genus-

a group of species that are related; a taxonomic rank below the level of family and above species

binomial nomenclature-

a part naming system that includes the organisms genus and species

organism-

any individual living thing

scientific name -

common language for describing living things

Most organisms have multiple

common names.

All organisms have only one agreed upon

scientific name.

habitat-

the location in which an organism lives

taxonomy-

the science of classifying organisms

classification-

to group things based on similar characteristics (related word: classification)

common name-

what is their name before they change it to the science name

hierarchical-

when you want to get more specific with the organisms