PALEO200 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Tyrannosaurus, Ontogeny, Paleontology
6 May 2017
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Document Summary
Taxonomy is the science of naming and organizing organisms into related groups. The binomial name of a species consists of two parts: the genus name (always capitalized) or generic name and the specific epithet. The rule of priority states that once a species has officially been given a binomial name, the name cannot be changed. A holotype specimen is a physical new species that is kept in a research institution, university or museum. It does not need to be a complete specimen. Individuals that differ in morphology because they belong to different species represent interspecific variation. Individuals that belong to the same species but have different morphologies show intraspecific variation. Ontogenetic variation is the variation between young and old individuals of the same species. Individual variation is the normal variation that exists among individuals of a given species. Biological species concept defines a species as a group of organisms that can successfully interbreed.
