the.com/systematics
the science of who's related to whom, minus the family drama.
means the branch of biology that classifies organisms and maps out their evolutionary relationships to each other.
from from greek systema, meaning organized whole, first formalized by linnaeus in the 1700s when he decided nature needed a filing system.
linnaeus started itbinomial naming system still used today, 1735
not just namingphylogenetics reconstructs actual evolutionary trees, not lists
dna changed everythingmolecular data overturned centuries of look-alike classifications
whales reclassifiednow grouped with hippos, not fish, thanks to genes
for instance
tree of life project — attempts to map all 1.8 million named species, ongoing since 2002
archaeopteryx debate — 1861 fossil forced rethink of bird-dinosaur boundary
three domain system — carl woese split life into bacteria, archaea, eukarya in 1977