Taxonomic Category
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taxonomic category
[¦tak·sə¦näm·ik ′kad·ə‚gȯr·ē] (systematics)
One of a hierarchy of levels in the biological classification of organisms; the seven major categories are kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species.
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.
Taxonomic Category
a concept in taxonomy, used to designate a coordinate group of objects—a taxon. In the classification of a specific sphere of reality, the system of taxonomic categories constructed must give a complete description of the reality from the standpoint of the hierarchical structure; such are the taxonomic categories, for example, that describe animal or plant systematics. Thus, taxonomic categories directly characterize not the concrete objects of classification, but only the method of the classification’s construction and the logical principles that resolve problems of typology.
The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.