The evolutionary tree of living things is currently supposed to run something along the lines of that listed below. Most of the tree was based on ideas from cladistics; where more than two groups are shown in a single branch, there is disagreement about how they diverged. Hypothetically taxonomy would follow the tree whenever possible, but in many places it does not at present.

The description as a "tree" results from earlier ideas of life as a progression from lower to higher forms. Although such views are discredited now, the imagery is too well established to be readily lost.

The terminology originates with Linnaean taxonomy: living things are classified as belonging to domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus and species.

• Life
  • Domain Eubacteria
    • Aquificales
    • CFB/Green sulfur bacteria group
    • Chlamydiales/Verrucomicrobia group
    • Chrysiogenes group
    • Coprothermobacter group
    • Cyanobacteria (blue-green algae)
    • Dictyoglomus group
    • Fibrobacter/Acidobacteria group
    • Firmicutes (gram-positive bacteria)
    • Flexistipes group
    • Fusobacteria
    • Green non-sulfur bacteria
    • Nitrospira group
    • Proteobacteria
    • Spirochaetales
    • Synergistes group
    • Thermodesulfobacterium group
    • Thermotogales
    • Thermus/Deinococcus group
    • ...
  • Domain Archaea
    • Crenarchaeota (extremely thermophilic archaebacteria)
    • Euryarchaeota
    • Korarchaeota
    • ...
  • Domain Eukaryota, organisms with cells containing a nucleus
    • Pelobionts
    • Entamoebae
    • Retortamonads
    • Diplomonads (e.g. Giardia)
    • Oxymonads
    • Parabasalia
    • Jakobids
    • Heterolobosea (e.g. Naegleria, Acrasis)
    • Euglenozoa (e.g. Euglena, Bodo, Trypanosoma'')
    • Stephanopogon
    • Nucleariids
    • Apusomonads
    • Cercomonads
    • Ellobiopsids
    • Kathablepharids
    • Pseudodendromonads
    • Spironemids
    • Spongomonads
    • Thaumatomonads
    • Chlorarachniophytes
    • Copromyxids
    • Granuloreticulosa (e.g. Foraminiferans)
    • Plasmodiophorids
    • Vampyrellids
    • Ramicristates (most lobose and filose amoebae, plasmodial and cellular slime moulds, e.g. Amoeba, Physarum, Dictyosteliium)
    • Dimorphids
    • Desmothoracids
    • Gymnosphaerids
    • Sticholonche
    • Acantharea
    • Phaeodarea
    • Polycystinea
    • Paramyxea
    • Haplosporidia
    • Alveolates
      • Apicomplexa (e.g. Plasmodium)
      • Ciliates (e.g. Paramecium, Stentor)
      • Dinoflagellates (e.g. Noctiluca)
    • Ebriids
    • Haptophytes
    • Stramenopiles (e.g. golden algae, diatoms, brown algae, water molds)
    • Xenophyophorea
    • Cryptomonads
    • Glaucophytes
    • Red algae (e.g. Polysiphonia)
    • Gymnophrea
    • Centrohelids
    • "Opisthokonts"
      • Kingdom Fungi
      • Choanoflagellates
      • Kingdom Animalia, animals
    • Kingdom Plantae, plants and green algae

Table of contents

1 See Also 2 External links and References 3 More examples

See Also

• Evolution
• Phylogeny
• Phylogenetic tree
• Taxonomy

External links and References

1. Colin Tudge, "The Variety of Life — A survey and a celebration of all the creatures that have ever lived", Oxford University Press, 2000
2. http://tolweb.org/tree/phylogeny.html The Tree of Life — A multi-authored, distributed Internet project containing information about phylogeny and biodiversity

More examples

• http://www.aisee.com/graph_of_the_month/jura.htm — The most detailed and comprehensive family tree of dinosaurs yet available