crochet1949 wrote:So they're Not all in the 'cat ' family?
Okay -- what Is the correct 'structure'? Genus is 1st and then species? So It's actually genera I'm talking about?
Here's how it breaks down, but first of all, keep in mind that the following represents the
classification of biological organisms based on shared characteristics. (As I explain take a look at the diagram below.) Domain is the highest grouping of life forms; there are three of them, with Eukarya, as shown below, containing those life forms we're most familiar with. Then we have Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species, and sometimes Subspecies, all of which, including Domain, are called ranks. As we go from the rank of Domain down to the rank of Subspecies the shared characteristics of an organism become more particular. In short then, a genus (Plural: genera) is a group of closely related species whose members have more in common with each other than with those species of other genera. A family is a group of closely related genera. An order is a group of closely related families, and so on up to the rank of Domain.
So, the Phylum rank of dogs is Chordata (all animals in this rank have a notochord, a hollow dorsal nerve cord). The order rank of dogs is Carnivora (only those animals with a notochord that are meat-eaters). The family rank of dogs is Canidae (noting those animals of the Carnivora order having particular features that set them apart from the other members of Carnivora; the cats, bears, weasels, and mongooses.) Getting down to the genus rank of dogs, they share their genus,
Canis, with coyotes,(
C. latrans) and several jackals,(
C.adustus being one of them) among others. The last
formal rank (there are quite a few intermediary ranks that are sometimes fitted within the eight major ranks) is Species. Dogs share their species designation---properly called the "specific epithet"---
lupus, with gray wolves. Thus, dogs and graywolves are regarded as constituting the species
Canis lupus. But to distinguish dogs from gray wolves each is further classified in a lower rank, Subspecies; dogs being ranked as the subspecies
familiaris, and gray wolves as the subspecies
lupus. Thus, the proper species name for dogs is
Canis lupus familiaris. Note that genus names are always capitalized and all three name are always italicized. AND when using a taxonomic designation to indicate a subspecies all three names must be used or indicated.
(Had I constructed the diagram below I'd have reversed the order of the ranks for better clarity, which is the way it's most common done. Anyway . . . .)