Classifying Living Things

This volume turns its attention to birds and how they are sorted into groups in the natural world. It forms one part of a wider series that explains what classification is, why scientists need it, and what distinguishes each major group from the others.

Each title in the series shows how living things placed in the same group share important features. Depending on the group, these shared traits can include behaviour, the stages of the life cycle, outward appearance and internal structure.

Every book opens with the basics of classification: how it helps us organise animals and plants, the larger systems such as kingdoms, and why scientists use both formal scientific names and everyday common names. From there, the volume examines one class in detail and presents examples drawn from significant orders within it.

The series also looks at creatures that might be mistaken for members of a group, such as the example of an animal that seems to be a bird but is not one.