# And then there were FIVE?? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 25, 2000, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-then-there-were-five/9328 "2000-03-25T03:09:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2000, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-then-there-were-five/9328/1 "2000-03-25T03:09:00Z")
OK here’s another line from the everthing I learned in school was wrong. I learned we had plants or animals. Now I hear there are five (5) kingdoms. Animals, Plants, Fungi, Blue Green Alae, and one other I think Bacteria or something like that. Fungi (mushrooms) look like plants to me. Only they are non green plants. Why are they different? ---
**Author:** ![Louie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c68b51/32.png) [@Louie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Louie)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2000, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-then-there-were-five/9328/2 "2000-03-25T03:22:00Z")
There’s now 6 kingdoms… Fungi (Mushrooms) Plantae (Plant) Animalia (Animal) Protoctista (ciliates, algae) Eubacteria (Bacteria) Archaebacteria (another Bacteria kingdom??) The main differences between the kingdoms is the structure of their cells. ---
**Author:** ![voguevixen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b5ac83/32.png) [@voguevixen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voguevixen)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2000, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-then-there-were-five/9328/3 "2000-03-25T03:38:00Z")
Here is my entire knowledge of the subject: You can remember the order of classification by remembering the phrase “Kentuckians Park Cars on Freeways Going South.” Kingdom Phyla Class Order Family Genus Species (wow, that’s pretty good for like 15 years ago!) * * * Now there’s nothing unexpected about the water giving out; “Land” is not a word we have to shout. ---
**Author:** ![Louie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c68b51/32.png) [@Louie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Louie)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2000, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-then-there-were-five/9328/4 "2000-03-25T03:47:00Z")
I always remember it as “Kids Put Condoms On For Good Sex” 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Jeannie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e480ec/32.png) [@Jeannie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeannie)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2000, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-then-there-were-five/9328/5 "2000-03-25T03:49:00Z")
Actually, it’s: Kevin Plays Cards On Fridays Generally Speaking Duh… ---
**Author:** ![Padeye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@Padeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Padeye)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2000, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-then-there-were-five/9328/6 "2000-03-25T03:59:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally posted by Markxxx: > Fungi (mushrooms) look like plants to me. Only they are **non green** plants. Why are they different? You answered your own question. Plants are green because the green stuff is the basis of how they work. Using sunlight to turn CO2 and water into plant material and O2. Fungo work work in a different way and do useful thing like turn sugar into alcohol and CO2. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2000, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-then-there-were-five/9328/7 "2000-03-25T04:00:00Z")
Hey, you must not be a birdwatcher, Markxxx. Back in the 1970’s the American Ornithological Union, for reasons known only to themselves, decided to reclassify a lot of North American bird species. This was of no particular interest to the general public, but you could hear the screams of anguished birdwatchers from Alaska to Florida. See, the whole point of birdwatching, for most people who indulge, is being able to count the biggest number of separate species on what’s called your Life List. Up till that moment, to take one of the AOU’s most egregiously offensive examples, birdwatchers had been able to count the White-Winged Junco, the Slate-Colored Junco, the Oregon Junco, and the Gray-headed Junco as four separate species. (I hear that snickering in the back of the room, and I want you children to stop it. This is very serious business to some people.) However, the AOU in their wisdom decided that these four kinds of admittedly very similar birds were actually “conspecific”, which is a fancy way of saying, “Heck, they’re just different color variations of the same basic junco. Let’s lump them all in together as the Dark-eyed junco.” They did the same thing with a bunch of birds, with the unhappy result that a lot of birdwatchers had their Life Lists decimated. I’m not saying it was anything to make you jump out of a tenth-story window in despair, but people were very upset. Some birdwatchers go to great lengths to see some of these actual species, planning vacation itineraries around it, driving all over North America (and South America, too, sometimes). If you had taken a special trip out to Arizona just to see an Audubon’s warbler, say, back in 1972, and then were informed a few years later that it was really just a “western race” of the yellow-rumped warbler, and so couldn’t count as a separate species and you were going to have to white-out the X by “Audubon’s warbler” in the back of your bird book, well, I guess you’d be upset, too. So, scientists change their minds all the time. Don’t sweat it. I gave up trying to figure them out after they announced that birds are actually dinosaurs. OK, fine, whatever… ---
**Author:** ![tiny\_cow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ad7895/32.png) [@tiny\_cow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tiny_cow)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2000, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-then-there-were-five/9328/8 "2000-03-25T04:02:00Z")
It’s really “Kill Pigs 'Cause Orwellian Farms Generally Suck.” Not that I have a bias against pigs, or anything. * * * Voted **Youngest Female** “Such a splendid little war…” ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2000, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-then-there-were-five/9328/9 "2000-03-25T04:02:00Z")
And it’s “King Philip Called Out Fifty Good Soldiers.” (But I like the one about condoms, although I doubt it will ever be taught in our public schools.) ---
**Author:** ![Lor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ea666f/32.png) [@Lor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lor)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2000, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-then-there-were-five/9328/10 "2000-03-25T04:54:00Z")
As it happens, I work at the Missouri Botanical Garden, and I had just asked a botanist this very same question. He says that fungi are plants, but have no chlorophyll and reproduce by sending out spores. Hence, they’re put into their own family. Granted, this is a vastly oversimplified explanation! In case anyone’s interested, lichens, those scaly, papery growths on tree trunks, are a combination of a fungus and blue-green algae. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Dave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/46a35a/32.png) [@Great\_Dave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Dave)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2000, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-then-there-were-five/9328/11 "2000-03-25T07:55:00Z")
Kings play chess on fine gold sets. The first division in the classification is between prokaryotes (Archaebacteria) and eukaryotes (everything else). eu-s have internal cell structures such as a nucleus and Golgi apparatus (always liked that one). The eu-s are further divided into several kingdoms- plants, which can produce their own food by photosynthesis; fungi, which, except for the lack of chlorophyll, are superficially similar to plants, but gain sustenance from decomposing organic matter; animals, generally the other multicellular organisms left over; and Monera, kind of a catch all for eukaryotic single cells. Because the lines at the single cell leve are a bit blurry, things tend to get shook up on a fairly constant basis. Some have chlorophyll, yet actively absorb other cells in a way that could be considered eating as an animal. Hell, botanists and zoologists can’t even agree on the second taxon -botanists prefer division, zo’s phylum. To think that life will ever be definitively catergorized is but a dream. Taxonomy is constanly changing, and often only the Family or Genus can be known with any authority. * * * -Dave “Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.” -Albert Einstein ---
**Author:** ![neutron\_star](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/51bf81/32.png) [@neutron\_star](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/neutron_star)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2000, 10:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-then-there-were-five/9328/12 "2000-03-25T10:17:00Z")
And you can grow mushrooms in the dark. Try that with a green plant! ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2000, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-then-there-were-five/9328/13 "2000-03-25T16:54:00Z")
Sillies, _everybody_ knows it’s “King Philip Came Over For Great Sex.” * * * “I can’t think why fancy religions should have such a ghastly effect on one’s grammar.” – Dorothy L. Sayers ---
**Author:** ![Alphagene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Alphagene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alphagene)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2000, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-then-there-were-five/9328/14 "2000-03-25T17:25:00Z")
There really is no official universally-agreed upon set of kingdoms. In fact, a lot of molecular geneticists insist that there are only three kingdoms: **Archaea** : the microscopic organisms that live by hydrothermal vents **Prokaryotes** : bacteria **Eukaryotes** : fungi, plants, animals I think the classical five-kingdom rule is preferred in high school biology courses because the differences at that level are more macroscopic rather than genetic. Plus a lot of people would be disturbed if they knew how closely related to fungus we were. * * * **Gypsy** : Tom, I don’t get you. **Tom Servo** : Nobody does. I’m the wind, baby. ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2000, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-then-there-were-five/9328/15 "2000-03-26T05:21:00Z")
Kings play chess on flat glass surfaces. _Kings play chess on flat glass surfaces._ **KINGS PLAY CHESS ON FLAT GLASS SURFACES!** What the hell is _ **with** _ you people?! 😃 So how does cladistics affect the whole taxonomic system? ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2000, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-then-there-were-five/9328/16 "2000-03-26T06:02:00Z")
King Philip cried, “Oh, for goodness’ sake!” ---
**Author:** ![Beruang](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/77aa72/32.png) [@Beruang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beruang)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2000, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-then-there-were-five/9328/17 "2000-03-27T19:40:00Z")
There was an article in some weekly science newsletter my sister subscribes to (yeah, I know, real specific citation. I’ll ask her what the name is…) which described some botanists who feel cladistics totally undermines taxonomic classification. Species is the only classification that makes any sense in the natural world; everything else (genus, family, order, class, etc.) is simply a human invention, a convenience for lumping various closely-related species together into bigger groups. The problem is, there is no objective standard for how closely related species muct be to be considered a genus; how closely related genera must be to be considered a family; etc. It’s all fairly arbitrary, though that did not become obvious until cladistics showed it’s all just geometry. Or boxes within boxes within boxes. And by the way, it’s “King Phillip Came Over For Good Sax” – apparently a Dizzy Gillespie fan. * * * “The dawn of a new era is felt and not measured.” Walter Lord ---
**Author:** ![Delta-9](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3be4f8/32.png) [@Delta-9](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Delta-9)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2000, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-then-there-were-five/9328/18 "2000-03-27T20:22:00Z")
Dizzy didn’t play sax. Played that silly horn that looked like it ran into a wall. * * * Eagles may soar, but weasels don’t get sucked into jet engines. [Delta-9 Home Page](http://www.delta9studio.com) ---
**Author:** ![labradorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3ec8ea/32.png) [@labradorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/labradorian)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2000, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-then-there-were-five/9328/19 "2000-03-27T20:26:00Z")
Oh Be A Fine Girl, Kiss Me! Waitaminit. Wrong first-year science credit. * * * **Dee da dee da dee dee do do / Dee ba ditty doh / Deedle dooby doo ba dee um bee ooby / Be doodle oodle doodle dee doh** [http://members.xoom.com/labradorian/](http://members.xoom.com/labradorian/) ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2000, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-then-there-were-five/9328/20 "2000-03-27T20:41:00Z")
We’ll forgive you, labradorian. After all, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-then-there-were-five/9328.md?page=2)