Family
Family
The term family is one of the seven major classification groups that biologists use to identify and categorize living things. These seven groups are hierarchical or range in order of size. Family is located between the groups order and genus. The classification scheme for all living things is: kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species.
Since the grouping family includes organisms that are even more alike than those in the group order, it is not always obvious which should or should not be included. One example that is easy to distinguish would be that of cat and dog. Both belong to the kingdom Animalia, the phylum Chordata, the class Mammalia, and the order Carnivora, but each is placed in a different family. Since the dog has nonretractable claws and hunts its prey by chasing it, it belongs to the family Canidae. The cat has retractable claws and hunts by stalking and surprise, and therefore belongs to the family Felidae.
For plants, all family names end in -aceae, while for animals, the family names end in -idae. The grouping family is certainly important to biologists, but in most cases, they often find that stating a genus and species is more than sufficient for consistent understanding and identification of an organism under consideration.
[See alsoClass; Classification; Genus; Kingdom; Order; Phylum; Species ]