Related topics: species

A new genus of fungi on grasses

While ecologically important, small mushrooms on monocots (grasses and sedges) are rarely studied and a lack of information about their habitat and DNA sequences creates difficulties in determining their presence or absence ...

New genus of 'alien-faced' multi-legged forest dwellers discovered

University of the Sunshine Coast researchers have uncovered a new genus and five new species of millipedes in remote African jungles—and say the many-legged creatures could hold important clues to whether woody vines are ...

page 1 from 28

Genus

In biology, a genus (plural: genera) is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia. Genera and higher taxonomic levels such as families are used in biodiversity studies, particularly in fossil studies since species cannot always be confidently identified and genera and families typically have longer stratigraphic ranges than species.

The term comes from Latin genus "descent, family, type, gender", cognate with Greek: γένος – genos, "race, stock, kin".

The composition of a genus is determined by a taxonomist. The standards for genus classification are not strictly codified, and hence different authorities often produce different classifications for genera. In the hierarchy of the binomial classification system, genus comes above species and below family.

This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA