Order (biology)

This article is about the taxonomic rank; for the sequence of species in a taxonomic list, see Wikipedia:taxonomic order

Template:Biological classification In scientific classification used in biology, the order (Latin "ordo") is

1. a taxonomic rank used in the classification of organisms. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, family, genus, and species, with order fitting in between class and family. An immediately higher rank, superorder, may be added directly above order, while suborder would be a lower rank.
2. a taxonomic unit, a taxon, in that rank. In that case the plural is orders (Latin ordines).

The Latin suffix -(i)formes meaning "having the form of" is used for the scientific name of orders of birds and fishes, but not for those of mammals and invertebrates.

History of the concept

The order as a distinct rank of biological classification having its own distinctive name (and not just called a higher genus (genus summum)) was first introduced by a German botanist Augustus Quirinus Rivinus in his classification of plants (which appeared in a series of treatises in the 1690s). Carolus Linnaeus was the first to apply it consistently to the division of all three kingdoms of Nature (minerals, plants, and animals) in his Systema Naturae (1735, 1st. Ed.).

Zoology

In zoology, the Linnaean orders were used more consistently than in botany. That is, the orders in the zoology part of the Systema Naturae refer to natural groups. Some of his ordinal names are still in use (e.g. Lepidoptera for the order of moths and butterflies, or Diptera for the order of flies, mosquitoes, midges, and gnats).

See also

• Wikipedia:Cladistics
• Wikipedia:Phylogenetics
• Wikipedia:Rank (botany)
• Wikipedia:Rank (zoology)
• Wikipedia:Biological classification
• Wikipedia:Systematics
• Wikipedia:Taxonomy

Template:Taxonomic ranks