Lesson video

Hello everyone, this is Mr. James, and I'm looking forward to learning some science with you.

So I hope you are feeling curious, and you are ready to learn some new things.

So let's start learning.

This lesson is from the unit, Why We Group And Classify Living Things, and the title of the lesson is Discovering and Naming New Species.

Our lesson outcome is this.

I can describe how scientists group, identify, and name new species of living things.

We have some key words, I'll read them, you can say them after me.

Taxonomist, classify, identify species, Latin.

I'll bring up the meaning of these words now, you can read the definitions, the meanings of these words, and pause the video when they're all on the screen.

So do pause the video now if you'd like to read them, but don't forget you can come back to them at any time during the lesson.

So here's what our lesson is going to look like.

We're gonna start by classifying new organisms, and then we'll move on to something called the binomial naming system.

So first of all, classifying new organisms. Laura is describing an animal she saw the zoo to her friends.

She says, "It had brown fur and four legs with black feet.

It moved by walking along the ground with its legs.

It had a head with two eyes, two ears, and a nose.

It had a tail." What animal do you think she's describing? Pause the video now so you can compare notes.

This is what Jacob thinks, and this is what Aisha thinks.

But Laura was describing a capybara.

Here's one in the picture.

It's a giant rodent native to South America, the largest rodent in the world.

What characteristics could Laura have added to make her description a little clearer? Pause the video now, so you can talk about this.

Here's Laura's new description.

"It had medium length fur, which was mostly brown, but faded to black around its nose and paws.

It had four legs with four toes on its front paws, and three toes on its back paws.

The toes all had short stumpy claws.

Its eyes and nose were black.

It had small rounded ears that were dark brown and I saw it eating grass." Can you describe any other observable characteristics of the capybara? Pause the video if you need to now.

Taxonomists are scientists who describe, classify, and name living things.

They've identified and named over 2 million different species of living things and 1,000s of new ones are discovered every single year.

When a new animal or plant is discovered, it's important that taxonomist describe it in detail.

This includes describing which characteristics make it similar and different to species that are close relatives.

Why do you think that this is important? Pause the video now so you can discuss that.

What's the name for a scientist who describes, classifies, and names living things? Is it A, classifier, B, agronomist, C, taxonomist, or D, naturalist? What do you think? Yes, it's C, a taxonomist.

The more detail there is in the description, the more likely others will be able to identify the species when it's seen again, descriptions could include the species' size, its structure, its colouring, and other observable characteristics.

It can also include things the species has been observed doing such as what it eats and how it reproduces.

Andeep is describing one of these animals to his friends.

Take a look at the three photographs.

"It has black and white stripes, and a face with two black eyes." How could he improve his description to identify the animal? You'll need to pause the video now to think about this.

Should we have a look at Andeep's improved description? He says, "This animal has a body structure that is similar to many other mammals.

It has four legs with paws, and sharp claws on the end of each.

It has a face very similar to a tiger or a lion with two eyes pointing forwards, a pink nose, and many white whiskers.

Its fur is short, and much like a tigers, only white and black instead of orange and black." Why is it important for taxonomist to describe organisms in lots of detail? Is it A, so they can practise their descriptive writing skills, B, so they will be recognised as the best taxonomist, or C, so others can identify individuals of the same species accurately.

What do you think? It's helpful that others can identify individuals of the same species accurately.

So that's why Taxonomists describe organisms in lots of detail.

Can you identify which plant Izzy is describing here? "This plant has bright yellow flowers with lots of petals, a tall hollow green stem and long leaves with jagged edges." What do you think? Yes, it's plant one, the dandelion.

Take on the role of a taxonomist for task A.

And describe the three species on the next slide in detail, make sure you include lots of details that would allow someone who's never seen the organism to be able to identify it.

You could also include similarities and differences to other living things that you know.

Here we go.

This is Species 1.

You'll need to pause the video now, so that you can describe it.

And here is Species 2.

Again, you'll need to pause the video.

And finally, Species 3, pause the video again.

"This animal has a similar body shape to a lobster," says Jun in his description, "It has a tail covered in a segmented shell.

It has at least eight legs, and appears to have two pincer-like limbs at the front of its body.

It has two purple eyes on the end of thick blue stalks and what looks like long, thin, and antennae beneath its eyes, which each have two pointed branches.

It lives under water." Is Jun's description similar to yours? Pause the video if you need to discuss that.

Now let's read Jun's description of Species 2.

"This plant has long, dark green leaves with rounded tips.

The leaves have one thick light green vein down the middle, and many very thin veins branching off this.

The flowers look like colourful birds with long beaks.

They have a long pointed red petal at the bottom and around five pointed yellow petals sticking up at the top.

There's also a long pointed purple part sticking out from the centre of the flower, which may be another petal or a stamen." Pause the video if you need to read this again.

And finally, let's read the description of Species 3.

"This animal has six jointed legs and a pair of wings.

The wings fold over its back like a moths do.

The wings are black with a lacy green pattern and white ringed yellow spots.

It has two black eyes, one on either side of its head.

It has a long curved horn-like appendage on the top of its head, which is red with small white spots." Pause the video if you want to read it again.

So now it's time to move on to the second part of our lesson called the binomial naming System.

Laura's sharing her photographs of the animals that she saw at the zoo.

"This is a lesser panda," she says.

Jacob says, "I thought that animal is called a red panda." Aisha says, "It doesn't look much like a panda." What do you think this animal's called? Pause the video now so you can think about that.

The animal in Laura's photograph is a species of small mammal native to the Eastern Himalayas in Southwestern China.

Laura checks her zoo guide, and she finds out that this animal can be called a lesser panda, a red panda, a red cat-bear, a fire fox, a fox bear, or a Himalayan raccoon.

Sometimes the same living thing is given different names in different places or in different languages.

This plant is called bergamot in some places and bee balm in others.

Why might this be a problem for taxonomists? Pause the video to talk about this now.

The names we commonly use for living things can be confusing.

Sometimes we use different names for the same organism.

Sometimes the same organism has more than one name.

This causes problems for taxonomists, because it's important for them to identify the organism they're working with.

Sometimes names for living things can even be misleading.

What do you observe about these animals? We have a silverfish, a starfish and a jellyfish.

What do you think? Pause the video if you need to talk about it.

Yeah, none of them are actually fish and fish are vertebrates, and these animals, they're all invertebrates.

Carl Linnaeus was a Swedish scientist born in 1707, and he knew it was important for taxonomists to all use the same names for the same organisms. He created a system for identifying and naming living things that were simple and helped to avoid any confusion.

Linnaeus's system involved giving all living things a name with two parts.

Starfish, Asterias rubens.

The first part is the small group or genus that the organism belongs to.

This is always capitalised.

The second part of the name is the species.

This is called the binomial system.

It means two names.

Binomial names for organisms are always written in italics.

And which of these binomial names do you think is written correctly? You'll need to read them, and then decide.

Yes, it's this one, Asterias rubens with a capital letter for the first word, and it's in italics, and the second word is not capitalised.

"Asterias rubens doesn't sound like an English word to me," says Aisha, "Did Carl Linnaeus name things using the Swedish language." In Linnaeus's time, academics and scientists often used Latin because it was considered to be the language of intelligent people.

Because of this, binomial names are usually Latin, or they're based on words from other languages that have been Latinized, and that means they've been made to sound like a Latin word.

Sometimes taxonomists also use words from ancient Greek to name organisms. Asterias rubens.

Asterias comes from the ancient Greek for star.

Rubens, that's from the Latin, rubeo, and it means red coloured.

Which language is commonly used for binomial names? Is it A, English, B, French, C, Italian, or D, Latin? Take a moment to think about that.

Yes, it's Latin, D.

Alex says, "So the binomial classification for this organism means red star.

That's much less confusing than starfish because it isn't actually a fish." This system has been in use since Linnaeus introduced it, because it's clear and it's simple.

No matter what language scientists are using, they still refer to each organism by the same binomial name.

Often the binomial classification for organisms means something about the way they look or the the things they do.

Red panda, Ailurus fulgens.

Well, Ailurus is ancient Greek for cat, and fulgens is Latin for shining bright.

Sometimes organisms are named after people with their names Latinized.

The binomial classification for this plant is Monarda fistulosa.

Monarda fistulosa.

Linnaeus himself named this genus of plants after a Spanish scientist he admired called Nicolas Monardes.

Fistulosa is Latin for hollow like a pipe.

This species' name was chosen because the plant has hollow stems. The scientist who discovers a species gets to choose its name.

Sometimes they have fun choosing names.

There are two types of fungi in the genus Spongiforma Spongiforma thailandica and Spongiforma squarepantsii why do you think these names were chosen? Pause the video so you can have a talk about that.

There are lots of ways to Latinize words.

We translate them directly into Latin.

Online translation tools are helpful for this if you can't speak Latin.

We can add suffixes to words to make them sound more Latin.

For example, as, aurum itas, ium, ius, osa, um, and us.

Imagine you are the first taxonomist to discover the duck billed platypus.

What could you name it using the binomial system.

Pause the video so you can have a think about that.

Sophia says, "I'd call it Mammalus anataria.

Mammalus because I know it's a mammal and anatinus because it is Latin for duck-like, because of its beak." What did you name the animal? Its real binomial name is Ornithorhynchus anatinus.

Ornithorhynchus is Greek for bird beak and anatinus is Latin for duck-like.

When a new organism is discovered, who decides on the binomial name for that living thing? Is it A, people at the nearest university, B, the person who discovered it, or C, the person who has the best idea? What do you think? Yeah, it's the person that discovered it.

Task B.

Imagine you are the first scientist to discover these organisms, create names for them using the binomial system.

So here you can see Species 1, Species 2 Species 3.

And on the next slide, Species 4, Species 5, and Species 6.

You'll need to pause the video while you get busy with that.

Well done.

I wish I could hear some of your suggestions.

Here are some of the names that Sam chose.

She asks, "Can you see why I chose them? Are they similar to yours?" Species 6, she called Viridivsavis quiffius.

That's Latin for green bird.

And she's also Latinized quiff, because it looks like the bird has a quiff hairstyle.

Species 3, she called Insectum elephanti.

That's Latin for insect and elephant, because I can tell it's an insect, but it has a trunk like an elephant.

Sam says, "I was curious about the real names for these organisms. So I carried out some research using secondary sources to find out what they are.

Are they anything like the ones that you chose?" So Species 1 is Odontodactylus scyllarus.

Odontodactylus is Greek for with teeth and finger toed.

And scyllarus is a reference to a mythical Greek monster, the Scylla.

Strelitzia reginae.

Strelitzia is named after the Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, who was the wife of King George III.

And reginae is Latin for queen.

Species 3, Pyrops candelaria.

Pyrops is Latin for pear-shaped eyes, and candelaria is Latin for candlestick.

Species 4 is Grapsus grapsus, and that's a Latinization of the Greek grapsaios meaning crab.

Species 5, Trametes versicolor.

Trametes is Latin for one who is thin and versicolor is Latin for many colours.

Species 6 is Tauraco persa.

Tauraco from an old West African colloquial name for these birds and persa means Persian.

Let's think about some of the things we've learned about discovering and naming new species.

Taxonomists discover, describe, and name thousands of new organisms every year.

Each new species is described in detail, including which features make it similar and different to other closely related organisms. The binomial system is used to give organisms a name that's recognised by anyone studying living things to avoid confusion.

Often binomial names are Latin or their words from other languages that have been Latinized.

Well, we've done lots of learning today, and I hope that you've enjoyed exploring the binomial naming system.

See you next time, bye-Bye.