Somerville House Middle School Science On-line: Year Seven
The Five Kingdoms
In our present time organisms are classified or sorted into five main groups called Kingdoms.
This has not always been so; originally there were only two kingdoms.
Can you guess what they were?
Here is a table showing the names of the kingdoms in English followed by the Latin name or names in brackets.
Kingdom
Examples
Number of cells
Animals (Animalia)
Goannas, sharks, snakes, jelly fish, snails
Multi-cellular
Plants (Plantae)
Conifers, Flowering plants, ferns, mosses
Multi-cellular
Fungi
Mushrooms, toadstools, yeasts, moulds
Usually multi-cellular
Prokaryotes (Prokaryotae)
Bacteria and Blue-green bacteria
single cells
Protists (protista, Protocista)
All the organisms that don't fit anywhere else
either
You will learn more about classification in Unit 2.