Taxonomic Hierarchy Explained

The taxonomic hierarchy is used to designate what an organism is. In this blog we will examine the taxonomy of the Canadian lynx, working our way from the broadest layer and getting more specific as we go on.

Above is the Canadian lynx, and below is a visual of the taxonomic hierarchy.

The diagram above is missing the bottom-most layer which is the domain which for the lynx would be Eukaryote. Working our way up on the diagram we move to kingdom, this is where we see if it is a plant or animal and for our lynx it belongs to the kingdom Animalia. The next layer is phylum, for the lynx this is Chordata meaning it follows all the characteristics needed for it to be a Chordate. Class is the next layer this is where the organism is defined by what physical characteristics it has, in this case the lynx is classified as a mammal. Order is next and in simple terms this is where we see what the organism eats and our lynx is a carnivore and belongs to the order of Carnivora, going further its suborder is Feliformia a group of feline like carnivores. Next up is family for the lynx it falls under Felidae which is the scientific name for cats and is subfamily is Felinae which is the group of cats which can purr but not roar. The Genus is what kind of cat this is, and obviously it's genus is lynx. Finally we have species, this is what specific type of lynx this is, because we are examining a Canadian lynx we use it's scientific name which is L. canadensis, the L standing for lynx and canadensis meaning "of Canada".

The final taxonomic hierarchy of our Canadian lynx looks like this-

Species- L. canadensis

Genus- Lynx

Subfamily- Felinae

.Family- Felidae

Suborder- Feliformia

Order- Carnivora

Class- Mammal

Phylum- Chordate

Kingdom- Animalia

Domain- Eukaryote

With the knowledge of taxonomic hierarchies you can go classify all of your favorite animals and even plants but with plants some of the names change. Now enjoy a picture of a baby Canadian lynx.