A casserole of taxa

A casserole of taxa

			 Construct a table (6 columns and 7 rows) and write TAXA above the first column. Write above the other columns the common name of the five organisms. Name each of the rows: phylum, class, order family, Genus and species. Complete the table with the proper taxonomy. Which taxa do the organisms have different names? Which order appears under the arthropoda phylum and the mullusca phylum? What does the name of this order mean? Which two Genus contain species with the same name? What does this word mean?  What are the two organisms that are most closely related? Which organism is the most distantly related to the other four?

A casserole of taxa



TAXA	squid	American lobster	blue mussels	American oysters	flat oysters
phylum	mollusca	arthropoda	mollusca	mollusca	mollusca
class	cephalopod	malacostraca	bivalve	bivalve	bivalve
order	decapod	decapod	mytiloida	ostreoida	ostreoida
family	loliginidae	nephropidae	mytilidae	ostreidae	ostreidae
Genus	Lolgio	Homarus	Mytilus	Crassostrea	Ostrea
species	opalescens	americanus	edulis	virginica	edulis

 Only in the Genus do the five organisms all have different names. The order that appears in both the phylum arthopoda and mollusca is that of decapods, which signifies 10 feet. Both the Genus Mytilus and Ostrea contain a species edulis, which signifies “edible”.