Page 15 - One Million Things: Animal Life - The Incredible Visual Guide

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Eight families, including mustelids, cats, bears, dogs, and foxes, make up the order Carnivora. Those belonging to this order share certain features: most eat meat, are the predominant skilled hunters and predators on land, and have flesh- slicing teeth. Some, such as bears, have a broader diet. Members of this order are commonly called carnivores, although this term is also sometimes used to describe meat-eaters from other orders. Related genera are grouped together into families. Mustela is one of 24 genera, including otters and badgers

ORDER 3. FAMILY 2. GENUS own slightly different lifestyle.

4. Least weasel

European badger

Red fox

Otter

Stoat

similarities and differences between species and organizing
on Earth, with millions more yet to be discovered. Scientists
make sense of this vast array of creatures by looking for
There are 1.5 million known species (types) of animal
CLASSIFICATION
them into groups of increasing size—from a genus,
which contains related species, through family,
1. SPECIES The least weasel has the scientific name Mustela nivalis, made up of the names of its genus (Mustela) and its species (nivalis). Each species has a two-part name like this that is understood by people worldwide. Members of the same species share similar features and can breed with each other in the wild.
order, class, and phylum, to kingdom, which
belongs to, and how it relates to other species.
includes all animal species. In this example,
you can see which groups the least weasel

US_012_013_Classification.indd 12 012_013_Classification.indd 2

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