Order ( Latin : ordo ) is one of the eight major hierarchical taxonomic ranks in Linnaean taxonomy . It is classified between family and class . In biological classification , the order is a taxonomic rank used in the classification of organisms and recognized by the nomenclature codes . An immediately higher rank, superorder , is sometimes added directly above order, with suborder directly beneath order. An order can also be defined as a group of related families.
23-523: Pecora is an infraorder of even-toed hoofed mammals with ruminant digestion. Most members of Pecora have cranial appendages projecting from their frontal bones ; only two extant genera lack them, Hydropotes and Moschus . The name "Pecora" comes from the Latin word pecus , which means "cattle". Although most pecorans have cranial appendages, only some of these are properly called "horns", and many scientists agree that these appendages did not arise from
46-571: A clade sister to Cervidae . According to the study, Cervidae diverged from the Bovidae-Moschidae clade 27 to 28 million years ago. The following cladogram is based on the 2003 study. Tragulidae [REDACTED] Antilocapridae [REDACTED] Giraffidae [REDACTED] Cervidae [REDACTED] Bovidae [REDACTED] Moschidae [REDACTED] Infraorder Pecora ("horned ruminants", "higher ruminants") Pecorans share characteristics with other artiodactyls, including
69-487: A common ancestor, but instead evolved independently on at least two occasions. Likewise, while Pecora as a group is supported by both molecular and morphological studies, morphological support for interrelationships between pecoran families is disputed. The first fossil ruminants appeared in the Early Eocene and were small, likely omnivorous , forest-dwellers. Molecular dating studies estimate that Ruminantia split into
92-427: A four-chambered stomach, and a paraxonic foot, meaning that it supports weight on the third and fourth digits. Several characteristics distinguish Pecora from its sister taxon, Tragulina : an astragalus with parallel sides, a loss of the trapezium , and differences in parts of the skull such as the petrosal bone . The distinguishing features of most pecoran families are cranial appendages. Most modern pecorans (with
115-479: A result, Micromeryx , Hispanomeryx , and Moschus are the only undisputed moschid members, making them known from at least 18 Ma. The group was abundant across Eurasia and North America during the Miocene , but afterwards declined to only the extant genus Moschus by the early Pleistocene . Until the early 21st century, it was believed that the musk deer (family Moschidae) were an adjacent, sister -group to
138-427: A taxonomist needs to follow in describing or recognizing an order. Some taxa are accepted almost universally, while others are recognized only rarely. The name of an order is usually written with a capital letter. For some groups of organisms, their orders may follow consistent naming schemes . Orders of plants , fungi , and algae use the suffix -ales (e.g. Dictyotales ). Orders of birds and fishes use
161-632: Is an infraorder within the larger suborder Ruminantia , and is the sister clade to the infraorder Tragulina (of which Tragulidae is the only surviving family ). Pecora's placement within Artiodactyla can be represented in the following cladogram : Tylopoda (camels) [REDACTED] Suina (pigs) [REDACTED] Tragulidae (mouse deer) [REDACTED] Pecora (horn bearers) [REDACTED] Hippopotamidae (hippopotamuses) [REDACTED] Cetacea (whales) [REDACTED] Current attempts to determine
184-497: Is shown to be closely related to their environment and anatomy, where light Pecorian species use both flexed and extended suspensions in their fast gallops. The white-tail and mule-deer have been observed to primarily use the extended suspension, since in this phase of their gallop they leap over bushes and logs that are present in their brush environment. However, heavy Pecorian species do not use extended suspensions as most have backs that slope downward with shorter hind legs. Pecora
207-628: The Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis of Augustin Pyramus de Candolle and the Genera Plantarum of Bentham & Hooker, it indicated taxa that are now given the rank of family (see ordo naturalis , ' natural order '). In French botanical publications, from Michel Adanson 's Familles naturelles des plantes (1763) and until the end of the 19th century, the word famille (plural: familles )
230-500: The Miocene suggests that its rapid diversification may correspond to the climate change events of that epoch, as this time period was marked by much of Earth's forest habitats being replaced by grasslands due to widespread cooling and drying. It is likely that the antelopes, giraffids, and pronghorns evolved in an open environment while the cervids, including the caribou, evolved in a woodland habitat. The type of gallop in Pecorian species
253-468: The 'true' deer of the family Cervidae ( caribou , moose , elk , and roughly 40–50 other species); however, a 2003 phylogenetic study by Alexandre Hassanin (of the National Museum of Natural History, France ) and co., based on mitochondrial and nuclear analyses, revealed that Moschidae and Bovidae ( antelope , cattle , goats , sheep ), together, form a sister- clade to Cervidae. According to
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#1732852612067276-636: The Latin suffix -iformes meaning 'having the form of' (e.g. Passeriformes ), but orders of mammals and invertebrates are not so consistent (e.g. Artiodactyla , Actiniaria , Primates ). For some clades covered by the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature , several additional classifications are sometimes used, although not all of these are officially recognized. In their 1997 classification of mammals , McKenna and Bell used two extra levels between superorder and order: grandorder and mirorder . Michael Novacek (1986) inserted them at
299-468: The ending -anae that was initiated by Armen Takhtajan 's publications from 1966 onwards. The order as a distinct rank of biological classification having its own distinctive name (and not just called a higher genus ( genus summum )) was first introduced by the German botanist Augustus Quirinus Rivinus in his classification of plants that appeared in a series of treatises in the 1690s. Carl Linnaeus
322-464: The exception of the Moschidae ) have one of four types of cranial appendages: horns, antlers, ossicones, or pronghorns. Order (biology) What does and does not belong to each order is determined by a taxonomist , as is whether a particular order should be recognized at all. Often there is no exact agreement, with different taxonomists each taking a different position. There are no hard rules that
345-888: The field of zoology , the Linnaean orders were used more consistently. That is, the orders in the zoology part of the Systema Naturae refer to natural groups. Some of his ordinal names are still in use, e.g. Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies) and Diptera (flies, mosquitoes, midges, and gnats). In virology , the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses 's virus classification includes fifteen taxomomic ranks to be applied for viruses , viroids and satellite nucleic acids : realm , subrealm , kingdom , subkingdom, phylum , subphylum , class, subclass, order, suborder, family, subfamily , genus, subgenus , and species. There are currently fourteen viral orders, each ending in
368-638: The relationships among pecoran families (as well as all artiodactyls) rely on molecular studies, as little consensus exists in morphological studies. Different families within Pecora are recognized as valid by different groups of scientists. Until the beginning of the 21st century it was understood that the family Moschidae (musk deer) was sister to Cervidae . However, a 2003 phylogenetic study by Alexandre Hassanin (of National Museum of Natural History, France ) and colleagues, based on mitochondrial and nuclear analyses, revealed that Moschidae and Bovidae form
391-420: The same position. Michael Benton (2005) inserted them between superorder and magnorder instead. This position was adopted by Systema Naturae 2000 and others. In botany , the ranks of subclass and suborder are secondary ranks pre-defined as respectively above and below the rank of order. Any number of further ranks can be used as long as they are clearly defined. The superorder rank is commonly used, with
414-495: The study, the Cervidae diverged from the Bovidae-Moschidae clade roughly 27–28 million years ago. The following cladogram is based on this 2003 study: Tragulidae [REDACTED] Antilocapridae [REDACTED] Giraffidae [REDACTED] Cervidae [REDACTED] Bovidae [REDACTED] Moschidae [REDACTED] After Prothero (2007) Family Moschidae This article about an even-toed ungulate
437-622: The suffix -virales . Moschidae See text Moschidae is a family of pecoran even-toed ungulates , containing the musk deer ( Moschus ) and its extinct relatives. They are characterized by long 'saber teeth' instead of horns, antlers or ossicones , modest size ( Moschus only reaches 37 lb (17 kg); other taxa were even smaller) and a lack of facial glands. While various Oligocene and Miocene pecorans were previously assigned to this family, recent studies find that most should be assigned to their own clades, although further research would need to confirm these traits. As
460-505: The two sister clades Pecora and Tragulina around 45 million years ago, during the Eocene . However, it was not until 15 million years later, at around 30 million years ago during the Oligocene , that the evolutionary radiation of Pecora began and the five families appeared ( Bovidae , Cervidae , Moschidae , Giraffidae , and Antilocapridae ). The appearance of many Pecoran fossils during
483-574: The word family ( familia ) was assigned to the rank indicated by the French famille , while order ( ordo ) was reserved for a higher rank, for what in the 19th century had often been named a cohors (plural cohortes ). Some of the plant families still retain the names of Linnaean "natural orders" or even the names of pre-Linnaean natural groups recognized by Linnaeus as orders in his natural classification (e.g. Palmae or Labiatae ). Such names are known as descriptive family names. In
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#1732852612067506-543: Was the first to apply it consistently to the division of all three kingdoms of nature (then minerals , plants , and animals ) in his Systema Naturae (1735, 1st. Ed.). For plants, Linnaeus' orders in the Systema Naturae and the Species Plantarum were strictly artificial, introduced to subdivide the artificial classes into more comprehensible smaller groups. When the word ordo was first consistently used for natural units of plants, in 19th-century works such as
529-540: Was used as a French equivalent for this Latin ordo . This equivalence was explicitly stated in the Alphonse Pyramus de Candolle 's Lois de la nomenclature botanique (1868), the precursor of the currently used International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants . In the first international Rules of botanical nomenclature from the International Botanical Congress of 1905,
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