Biology · The Living World · NEET
Yes. Kingdom is the highest (topmost) and broadest category in the taxonomic hierarchy. The full order from lowest to highest is: Species → Genus → Family → Order → Class → Phylum (or Division) → Kingdom. Nothing stands above Kingdom in the basic NCERT hierarchy. This is why it comes LAST when you list categories in ascending order and FIRST when you list them in descending order (Kingdom → Species). NEET loves to test this exact position.
The FEWEST. This confuses many students. As you go UP from species to kingdom, the number of shared (common) characters keeps decreasing. Species members share the most characters; kingdom members share the least. But a kingdom has the LARGEST number of organisms. So: highest category = most members, least common characters. Lower category = fewer members, more common characters.
Kingdom Animalia is the top category that holds ALL animals from every phylum (like Arthropoda, Chordata, etc.). Kingdom Plantae is the top category that holds ALL plants from every division (like Angiospermae, etc.). NCERT calls these two the animal kingdom and plant kingdom. Note the wording: for animals we say phylum, for plants we say division — but both are grouped under a kingdom at the top.
Kingdom is one step HIGHER than phylum. Many related phyla are grouped together into one kingdom. For example, phylum Arthropoda (insects, crabs) and phylum Chordata (fish, humans) are different phyla, but both sit inside Kingdom Animalia. So kingdom is bigger and broader; phylum is a subgroup inside it. For plants the equivalent of phylum is called division.
Because the higher you go, the fewer characters organisms share, so it becomes harder to decide how one taxon relates to another taxon at the same level. NCERT says: 'Higher the category, greater is the difficulty of determining the relationship to other taxa at the same level. Hence, the problem of classification becomes more complex.' At the species level organisms are very alike, so grouping is easy; at the kingdom level they are very different, so it is complex.
In the taxonomic categories, which hierarchical arrangement is correct in the case of animals?
Arrange the following taxonomic categories in ascending order: (a) Genus, (b) Class, (c) Order, (d) Phylum, (e) Family, (f) Kingdom, (g) Species.
Try the real previous-year questions from this chapter — each with the answer and a full solution.
Kingdom is the HIGHEST (topmost) category. Species is the lowest. So the ladder runs Species (bottom) up to Kingdom (top).
For plants we use DIVISION, and for animals we use PHYLUM. Both come just below Kingdom in the hierarchy. NEET sometimes uses this animal-vs-plant wording as a trap.
Kingdom. It has the most members but they share the least in common. Remember: going up the ladder, members increase but common characters decrease.
In the basic two-kingdom grouping used in this chapter there are two: Kingdom Plantae and Kingdom Animalia. Whittaker's more detailed system later gave five kingdoms (Monera, Protista, Fungi, Plantae, Animalia), studied in Biological Classification.
