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The hierarchy of biological classification's eight major taxonomic ranks, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia. A class contains one or more orders. Intermediate minor rankings are not shown.

In scientific classification used in biology, the order (Latin: ordo) is

1. a taxonomic rank used in the classification of organisms. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, family, genus, and species, with order fitting in between class and family. An immediately higher rank, superorder, may be added directly above order, while suborder would be a lower rank.
2. a taxonomic unit, a taxon, in that rank. In that case the plural is orders (Latin ordines).

Example: Walnuts and hickories belong to the family Juglandaceae (or walnut family), which is placed in the order Fagales.

What does and does not belong to each order is determined by a taxonomist. Similarly for the question if a particular order should be recognized at all. Often there is no exact agreement, with different taxonomists each taking a different position. There are no hard rules that a taxonomist needs to follow in describing or recognizing an order. Some taxa are accepted almost universally, while others are recognised only rarely.

For some groups of organisms, consistent suffixes are used to denote that the rank is an order. The Latin suffix -(i)formes meaning "having the form of" is used for the scientific name of orders of birds and fishes, but not for those of mammals and invertebrates. The suffix -ales is for the name of orders of vascular plants.

Hierarchy of ranks[link]

For some clades, a number of additional classifications are used.

In their 1997 classification of mammals, McKenna and Bell used two extra levels between Superorder and Order: "Grandorder" and "Mirorder".^[1]

History of the concept[link]

The order as a distinct rank of biological classification having its own distinctive name (and not just called a higher genus (genus summum)) was first introduced by a German botanist Augustus Quirinus Rivinus in his classification of plants (appeared in a series of treatises in the 1690s). Carolus Linnaeus was the first to apply it consistently to the division of all three kingdoms of nature (minerals, plants, and animals) in his Systema Naturae (1735, 1st. Ed.).

Botany[link]

For plants the Linnaean orders, in the Systema Naturae and the Species Plantarum, were strictly artificial, introduced to subdivide the artificial classes into more comprehensible smaller groups. When the word ordo was first consistently used for natural units of plants, in nineteenth century works such as the Prodromus of de Candolle and the Genera Plantarum of Bentham & Hooker, it indicated taxa that are now given the rank of family (see ordo naturalis).

In French botanical publications, from Michel Adanson's Familles naturelles des plantes (1763) and until the end of the 19th century, the word famille (plural: familles) was used as a French equivalent for this Latin ordo. This equivalence was explicitly stated in the Alphonse De Candolle's Lois de la nomenclature botanique (1868), the precursor of the currently used International Code of Botanical Nomenclature.

In the first international Rules of botanical nomenclature of 1906 the word family (familia) was assigned to the rank indicated by the French "famille", while order (ordo) was reserved for a higher rank, for what in the nineteenth century had often been named a cohors (plural cohortes).

Some of the plant families still retain the names of Linnaean "natural orders" or even the names of pre-Linnaean natural groups recognised by Linnaeus as orders in his natural classification (e.g. Palmae or Labiatae). Such names are known as descriptive family names.

Zoology[link]

In zoology, the Linnaean orders were used more consistently. That is, the orders in the zoology part of the Systema Naturae refer to natural groups. Some of his ordinal names are still in use (e.g. Lepidoptera for the order of moths and butterflies, or Diptera for the order of flies, mosquitoes, midges, and gnats).

See also[link]

Biology portal

• Cladistics
• Phylogenetics
• Rank (botany)
• Rank (zoology)
• Biological classification
• Systematics
• Taxonomy
• Virus classification

References[link]

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (July 2011)

Kingsnake
Scarlet kingsnake, Lampropeltis triangulum elapsoides
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Subphylum:	Vertebrata
Class:	Reptilia
Order:	Squamata
Suborder:	Serpentes
Family:	Colubridae
Subfamily:	Colubrinae
Genus:	Lampropeltis Fitzinger, 1843

Kingsnakes are colubrid snake members of the Lampropeltis genus, which also includes the milk snake and four other species, and 45 subspecies.

Lampropeltis means "shiny shield" (from Greek λαμπρος, "shine" + πελτα, "small shield"), a name given to them in reference to their dorsal scales. The majority of kingsnakes have quite vibrant patterns on their skins. Kingsnakes use constriction to kill their prey and tend to be opportunistic when it comes to their diet; they will eat other snakes (ophiophagy), including venomous snakes, lizards, rodents, birds and eggs. The common kingsnake is known to be immune to the venom of other snakes and to eat rattlesnakes, but is not necessarily immune to the venom of snakes from different localities.). The "king" in the name (as with the king cobra) references its taste for other snakes.

Some species of kingsnake, such as the scarlet kingsnake, have coloration and patterning that can cause them to be confused with the venomous coral snakes. One mnemonic rhymes to help people distinguish between the coral snake and its nonvenomous look-alikes is "Red touch yellow, kills a fellow. Red touch black, friend of Jack."

Taxonomic reclassification is an ongoing process, and different sources often disagree, granting full species status to a group of these snakes that another source considers a subspecies. In the case of Lampropeltis catalinensis, for example, only a single specimen exists, so classification is not necessarily finite. In addition, hybridization between species with overlapping geographic ranges is not uncommon, confusing taxonomists further.

Kingsnakes are commonly kept as pets, due to their ease of care; they are overall hardy and simple to care for. Their captive diet usually consists of appropriately sized, killed rodents. Giving live rodents may be bad for the snake's health, as live rodents are capable of delivering powerful bites, potentially injuring the snake. Kingsnakes are generally docile, curious and gentle.

Eastern kingsnake, Lampropeltis getula getula

Kingsnake species include:

• Grey-banded kingsnake, Lampropeltis alterna (Brown, 1901)
• Lampropeltis calligaster
  • Prairie kingsnake, Lampropeltis calligaster (Harlan, 1827)
  • South Florida mole kingsnake, L. c. occipitolineata Price, 1987
  • Mole kingsnake, L. c. rhombomaculata (Holbrook, 1840)
• Common kingsnake, Lampropeltis getula
  • California kingsnake, L. g. californiae (Blainville, 1835)
  • Florida kingsnake, L. g. floridana (Blanchard, 1919)
  • Eastern kingsnake, L. g. getula (Linnaeus, 1766)
  • Apalachicola kingsnake, L. g. meansi Krysko & Judd, 2006
  • Speckled kingsnake, L. g. holbrooki Stejneger, 1902
  • Black kingsnake, L. g. niger (Yarrow, 1882)
  • Western black kingsnake, L. g. nigrita Zweifel & Norris, 1955
  • Baja Cape kingsnake, L. g. nitida
  • Desert kingsnake, L. g. splendida (Baird & Girard, 1853)
  • Isla Santa Catalina kingsnake L. "getula" catalinensis (Van Denburgh & Slevin, 1921)
• Lampropeltis mexicana
  • L. m. leonis (Günther, 1893)
  • Durango mountain kingsnake, L. m. greeri]] Webb, 1961
  • Nuevo Leon kingsnake, L. m. thayeri]] (Loveridge, 1924)
• Lampropeltis pyromelana
  • Utah mountain kingsnake, L. p. infralabialis Tanner, 1953
  • Sonoran mountain kingsnake, L. p. knoblochi Taylor, 1940
  • Arizona mountain kingsnake, L. p. pyromelana (Cope, 1866)
• Ruthven's kingsnake, Lampropeltis ruthveni (Blanchard, 1920)
• Lampropeltis triangulum (see: milk snake
  • Scarlet kingsnake, L. t. elapsoides (Holbrook, 1838)
• Lampropeltis webbi Bryson, Dixon & Lazcano, 2005
• Lampropeltis zonata
  • San Pedro kingsnake, L. z. agalma (Van Denburgh & Slevin, 1923)
  • Todos Santos Island kingsnake, L. z. herrerae (Van Denburgh & Slevin, 1923)
  • Sierra mountain kingsnake, L. z. multicincta (Yarrow, 1882)
  • Coast Mountain kingsnake, L. z. multifasciata (Bocourt, 1886)
  • San Bernardino Mountain kingsnake, L. z. parvirubra Zweifel, 1952
  • San Diego mountain kingsnake, L. z. pulchra Zweifel, 1952
  • St. Helena Mountain kingsnake, L. z. zonata] (Blainville, 1835)

Additionally, Pyron and Burbrink have argued the short-tailed snake, more familiar as Stilosoma extenuatum, should be included with Lampropeltis.^[1]

References[link]

1. ^ Pyron, R.Alexander; Frank T. Burbrink 2009. Neogene diversification and taxonomic stability in the snake tribe Lampropeltini (Serpentes: Colubridae) Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 52 (2): 524-529

Hubbs, Brian. 2009. Common Kingsnakes. Tricolor Books, Tempe, Arizona.

• Genus Lampropeltis at The Reptile Database

External links[link]

• kingsnake Care Sheets and Photos
• Desert USA: Common Kingsnake
• Caring for a Common Kingsnake
• Common Kingsnake - Lampropeltis getula Species account from the Iowa Reptile and Amphibian Field Guide
• Kingsnake eating a garter snake
• King Snake Care Sheet

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Lampropeltis