Biological groupings

Usage examples of taxa.

Many more taxa exist, of course, than are shown by the few points in the figure.

But the curve is representative of the much denser array of points that would be necessary to characterize the tens of millions of separate taxa which have emerged during the history of life on our planet.

The major taxa, which have evolved most recently, are by and large the most complicated.

The genetic instructions of all the other taxa on Earth are written in the same language, with the same code book.

Since animal taxa such as mammals, reptiles or amphibians contain members with very different brain sizes, we cannot give a reliable estimate of the number of neurons in the brain of a typical representative of each taxon.

The cognitive abilities of chimpanzees force us, I think, to raise searching questions about the boundaries of the community of beings to which special ethical considerations are due, and can, I hope, help to extend our ethical perspectives downward through the taxa on Earth and upwards to extraterrestrial organisms, if they exist.

Although the relationship between these two taxa is not completely explained at the moment, such a division is presently accepted.

Due to the incompleteness of remains, exact relations among particular taxa included here are still difficult to determine.