Evolutionary tree

The evolutionary tree of living things is currently supposed to run something along the lines of that listed below. Most of the tree was based on ideas from cladistics; where more than two groups are shown in a single branch, there is disagreement about how they diverged. Hypothetically taxonomy would follow the tree whenever possible, but in many places it does not at present.

The terminology originates with Linnaean taxonomy: living things are classified as belonging to domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus and species.

• Life
  • Domain Eubacteria
    • Aquificales
    • CFB/Green sulfur bacteria group
    • Chlamydiales/Verrucomicrobia group
    • Chrysiogenes group
    • Coprothermobacter group
    • Cyanobacteria (blue-green algae)
    • Dictyoglomus group
    • Fibrobacter/Acidobacteria group
    • Firmicutes (gram-positive bacteria)
    • Flexistipes group
    • Fusobacteria
    • Green non-sulfur bacteria
    • Nitrospira group
    • Proteobacteria
    • Spirochaetales
    • Synergistes group
    • Thermodesulfobacterium group
    • Thermotogales
    • Thermus/Deinococcus group
    • ...
  • Domain Archaea
    • Crenarchaeota (extremely thermophilic archaebacteria)
    • Euryarchaeota
    • Korarchaeota
    • ...
  • Domain Eukaryota, organisms with cells containing a nucleus
    • Pelobionts
    • Entamoebae
    • Retortamonads[?]
    • Diplomonads[?] (e.g. Giardia)
    • Oxymonads[?]
    • Parabasalia[?]
    • Jakobids[?]
    • Heterolobosea (e.g. Naegleria[?], Acrasis[?])
    • Euglenozoa (e.g. Euglena, Bodo, Trypanosoma[?])
    • Stephanopogon[?]
    • Nucleariids
    • Apusomonads[?]
    • Cercomonads[?]
    • Ellobiopsids[?]
    • Kathablepharids[?]
    • Pseudodendromonads[?]
    • Spironemids[?]
    • Spongomonads[?]
    • Thaumatomonads[?]
    • Chlorarachniophytes
    • Copromyxids[?]
    • Granuloreticulosa[?] (e.g. Foraminiferans)
    • Plasmodiophorids[?]
    • Vampyrellids
    • Ramicristates (most lobose and filose amoebae, plasmodial and cellular slime moulds, e.g. Amoeba, Physarum[?], Dictyosteliium[?])
    • Dimorphids
    • Desmothoracids
    • Gymnosphaerids
    • Sticholonche[?]
    • Acantharea
    • Phaeodarea[?]
    • Polycystinea[?]
    • Paramyxea[?]
    • Haplosporidia[?]
    • Alveolates
      • Apicomplexa (e.g. Plasmodium[?])
      • Ciliates (e.g. Paramecium, Stentor)
      • Dinoflagellates (e.g. Noctiluca[?])
    • Ebriids[?]
    • Haptophytes
    • Stramenopiles (e.g. golden algae, diatoms, brown algae, water molds)
    • Xenophyophorea[?]
    • Cryptomonads
    • Glaucophytes
    • Red algae (e.g. Polysiphonia[?])
    • Gymnophrea[?]
    • Centrohelids
    • "Opisthokonts"
      • Kingdom Fungi
      • Choanoflagellates
      • Kingdom Animalia, animals
    • Kingdom Plantae, plants and green algae

External links and References

1. Colin Tudge, "The Variety of Life -- A survey and a celebration of all the creatures that have ever lived", Oxford University Press, 2000
2. http://tolweb.org/tree/phylogeny.html The Tree of Life -- A multi-authored, distributed Internet project containing information about phylogeny and biodiversity