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help: taxon ancestors

Member of taxon pages
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Each taxon is one part of a chain of taxonomic relationships from the top level (all life) down to the lowest species or subspecies level.

Each intermediate taxon represents a grouping of related taxons. In the common phylogenetic taxonomy used in science, all taxons in the intermediate group are more related to each other than to any other group. However, the BAWG also includes informal taxons (such as all galls) to represent taxons that are conceptually similar even if not directly related.

In order to better establish the relationship of a taxon to others, each taxon page lists the interesting higher-level taxons that it is a member of. “Interesting” generally means those taxons with sufficient general use to have a common name, but for brevity the list generally excludes high-level taxons that are obvious (such as animals (kingdom Animalia)).