Why do we have 5 kingdoms

This system was developed over 2, years ago and has changed drastically over the years. Monera Kingdom The Monera Kingdom consists of organisms that are made up of one cell. These organisms are called unicellular. These unicellular organisms are made of a very simple cell that often lacks many cell parts, such as a nucleus, that are commonly found in other cells. Bacteria are a type of monera. Protist Kingdom Protists are similar to monera in that they are unicellular. Protists are a bit more complex because they contain a nucleus.

They also have moving parts and can move around within their environment. Plants are divided into two groups: flower- and fruit-producing plants and those that don? They include garden flowers, agricultural crops, grasses, shrubs, ferns, mosses, and conifers. Animals are the most complex organisms on Earth. Animals are multi-celled organisms, eat food for survival, and have nervous systems.

They are divided into vertebrates and invertebrates and include mammals, amphibians, reptiles, birds and fish. Updated July 26, Beth Rowen. Monera Monera are single-celled organisms that don? Protists Protists are mostly single-celled organisms that have a nucleus.

Fungi Fungi are usually motionless organisms that absorb nutrients for survival. Plants Plants contain chlorophyll, a green pigment necessary for photosynthesis, a process in which plants convert energy from sunlight into food. Animals Animals are the most complex organisms on Earth. More about Animals. This means that all the species that make up these five large groups - some recent theories split them further into six or even seven - have common ancestors and therefore share some of their genes and belong to the same family tree.

As well as the kingdoms of living things there are other taxonomic categories within the same classification system such as, for instance, domain, phylum, class, order, family, genus and species. They all follow a hierarchical order and are dependent on each other, so some divisions include others.

In this way, the domain includes the kingdom, the kingdom the phylum, the phylum the class, and so on. All the species in a particular kingdom have similar characteristics in terms of their growth and the way they function. Now let's look at where the family relationships that define nature's kingdoms come from:. Autotrophic makes its own food or heterotrophic feeds on other living things.

Cell organisation. Unicellular having only one cell or multicellular having two or more cells. Cell type. Eukaryotes the genetic material is surrounded by a membrane or prokaryotes lacking a membrane. Aerobic needs oxygen or anaerobic does not use oxygen. Sexual, asexual or through spores. Self-moving or static. The first person to divide living things into five broad kingdoms was North American ecologist Robert Whittaker.

This researcher proved in that fungi were not plant organisms - previously it was thought that they were - and a decade later he proposed the creation of the fungi kingdom to differentiate them from plants. Whittaker's theory was widely accepted and the scientific community thereby added a new group to the previous four-kingdom system, established by the American biologist Herbert Copeland in The kingdom Animalia is the most evolved and is divided into two large groups - vertebrates and invertebrates.

These animals are multi-celled, heterotrophic eukaryotes with aerobic respiration, sexual reproduction and the ability to move.