Description - assigning attributes or features to living things. Identification - associating a unknown object with a known object. Nomenclature - formal naming of living things according to established rules. Classification - the organization of objects in some order. Return to the Table of Contents Classification can be accomplished in two major ways.
Phenetic classification is that in which things are grouped together based on overall similarity.
This is how most things are classified in everyday life. This is the preferred method of classifying life. Systematics utilizes evidence from all fields of biology, e.g., from morphology, anatomy, chemistry, ultrastructure, behavior, and molecular biology. A cladogram is a branching diagram representing our best estimate of phylogeny. For each member of the whole group, determine characters and character states.