| Kingdom
Phylum Class Order Family Genus Species |
In the Linnean system (and
taxonomic systems based on it), the Family
is a taxonomic category between
Order and Tribe.
It might seem strange that a family is considered higher than a tribe (i.e.e
a family can contain many tribes, but not vice versa), but such is the
way these names are. When there are no Tribes, the Family
is a taxonomic category between
Order and Genus. More even
then an order, a family is a group of organisms among which the differences
are quite minor, e.g. Equiidae - horses and their relatives, Ceratopsidae
- horned dinosaurs, or  Hominidae,
man and ape-men (although again the differences among Hominids are extremely
slight, here we see a chauvanistic taxonomic inflation, elevated a probably
genus rank to family ranking). Some families contain thousands of
species, otehrs might only have a single species.
|
| rank | suffix |
| Magnafamily | - idea |
| Superfamily | - oidea or -acea |
| Family | - idae |
| Subfamily | -inae |