Video title: New arrival at the zoo
There's a new arrival at the zoo.
It needs to be housed with other animals in the same classification group.
classification group
The trouble is, the animal arrived without any paperwork identifying its species.
species
Imagine if you have to help the zookeeper decide where to put the animal.
You use a classification key to help you.
classification key
The first question asks: Does the animal have feathers?
Clearly not, so we know the animal is not a bird and we move down to the next question.
Does it have scaly skin?
Again the answer is no ... we can rule out putting the animal in the reptile house.
Question three asks: Does it have fur?
This time the answer is yes.
Now we know our creature is a mammal, but what kind?
Does it have hoofed toes?
Let's take a look...
Yes it does.
That means we can further classify it into a group of mammals called ungulates.
Now we can find out the species.
The next question asks: Does the animal have a snout?
Yes, which means our new arrival is a tapir.
Thanks to the classification key, the zookeeper now knows where to house the tapir.
It will go next to its closest relatives ... other ungulates like horses and hippos.
classification key
species
mammal
It needs to be housed with other animals in the same classification group.
classification group
The trouble is, the animal arrived without any paperwork identifying its species.
species
Imagine if you have to help the zookeeper decide where to put the animal.
You use a classification key to help you.
classification key
The first question asks: Does the animal have feathers?
Clearly not, so we know the animal is not a bird and we move down to the next question.
Does it have scaly skin?
Again the answer is no ... we can rule out putting the animal in the reptile house.
Question three asks: Does it have fur?
This time the answer is yes.
Now we know our creature is a mammal, but what kind?
Does it have hoofed toes?
Let's take a look...
Yes it does.
That means we can further classify it into a group of mammals called ungulates.
Now we can find out the species.
The next question asks: Does the animal have a snout?
Yes, which means our new arrival is a tapir.
Thanks to the classification key, the zookeeper now knows where to house the tapir.
It will go next to its closest relatives ... other ungulates like horses and hippos.
classification key
species
mammal
A mystery animal has arrived at the zoo. How do we decide where to house it?
Learning points
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