The binomial system

There are millions of species on our planet. Although species can be very different from each other, many have similar features that allow us to put them into groups. This is called classification.

Kingdoms

The first big division of living things in the classification system is to put them into one of five kingdoms. These are based on what an organism's cells are like.

The five kingdoms are:

1. animals (all multicellular animals)
2. plants (all green plants)
3. fungi (moulds, mushrooms, yeast)
4. prokaryotes (bacteria, blue-green algae)
5. protoctists (Amoeba, Chlorella and Plasmodium)