Question

Basic unit or smallest taxon of taxonomy/classification is
a. Species
b. Kingdom
c. Family
d. Variety

Answer 1

Hint: Taxonomy is a branch of biology, which helps to classify all living organisms, and it was developed by the Swedish Botanist, Carolus Linnaeus in the 18th century, and he also made the rankings and developed a taxonomical hierarchy where it consists of different ranks.

Complete answer:
Taxonomy classification is also called taxonomic hierarchy, it is nothing but the sequence of categories in increasing or decreasing order, in total there are 7 levels in the classification. Among all kingdoms is highest and species is the lowest.

> Kingdom: This is the highest level in the taxon classification, and there are mainly 5 types of kingdoms which include, Animalia, Plantae, Fungi, Protista, and Monera. This kingdom is again divided into five subgroups.

> Phylum: This is the second-highest in taxon classification after kingdom in descending order, this is more specific than a kingdom, there are 35 phyla, which include arthropods, Chordata, etc.

> Class: It is one of the ranks in the taxonomic hierarchy which includes, it is present in classification even before the discovery of phylum, and the kingdom Animalia includes 108 classes.

> Order: This is a more specific rank, comparatively than class, and each order contains one or more specific families, and the class Mammalia contains 26 orders.

> Family: In this taxonomic classification, it contains various genera, which generally share a few similarities.

> Genus: A group of similar species is generally termed as genus, and they are again of two types, which include monotypic genus which means it contains only one type of species, whereas Polytypic genus in which it contains more than two types of species.

> Species: It is the lowest level in the taxonomic hierarchy and on the earth, there are almost 8.7 million species present.

Hence, the correct answer is option (A).

Note: Carolus Linnaeus is considered as father of modern taxonomy, and along with taxonomic hierarchy classification, he also discovered the binomial nomenclature, which means that each name has two parts that is genus and species, and he also wrote a book called Systemic naturae.