Video Transcript
The diagram provided shows an
incomplete evolutionary tree of primates belonging to the Hominoidea
superfamily. What level of the taxonomic
hierarchy is represented by Hylobatidae and Hominidae?
The basic taxonomic hierarchy is
kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species. At times, taxonomists find it
helpful to include other groupings either below or above one of these levels. A grouping below a level would be
called a subgrouping, while a grouping above a level would be called a
supergrouping. For example, while species is
usually the most specific grouping, at times taxonomists will indicate subspecies,
that is, groupings of organisms in the same species that nevertheless have some
particular characteristics that set them apart from others in that same species.
In this case, we are told about a
superfamily called Hominoidea. This would be a grouping of similar
families within the same order. The idea would be that the families
in this superfamily have some characteristics in common that set them apart from
other families in the order. We are then asked what Hylobatidae
and Hominidae are. Since these are the groupings
directly below the superfamily, it would make sense that these are families.
However, if we are in doubt, there
are a couple of ways we can check this. First, we can see the scientific
names of the particular species here. The scientific name is a
combination of the genus name with the particular species name. So we know for sure that these are
different species. We can also see the corresponding
genus names here and see that they do correspond to the genuses in the scientific
names of the species. The level above genus, where we
find Hominidae and Hylobatidae, is the family level. So again it makes sense that these
are families. Additionally, the common ending for
the name of a family is -dae. We can see that these names end in
-dae, which provides some extra confirmation that these are families.
So, the correct answer to this
question is family. Hylobatidae and Hominidae represent
the family level of the taxonomic hierarchy.
