Why is it important to study animals? Scientists utilize classification to aid in their understanding of the relationships between living things as well as the commonalities among many of the many thousands of species of life that exist today. Taxonomy is the study of naming, characterizing, and categorizing living things, which includes all species of plants, animals, and microbes worldwide. Taxonomists identify, describe, and classify species, particularly those that are novel to science, using morphological, behavioral, genetic, and biochemical observations. Taxonomy recognizes and catalogs the elements of biological diversity, offering the fundamental information necessary for the management and application of the Convention on Biological Diversity. From what I have seen from taxonomy, taxonomy based on my understanding studies living organisms and sees their characteristics and sorts them out by those characteristics. It is to make classifying them one by one easier and more orderly because if we just classify them by example classifying all flying living organisms together then it will cause a lot of confusion because some are different from the other. From my group's study we classified the Visayan Warty Pig which is part of a species the sus cebifrons a critically endangered species. They belong to the animalia kingdom, the animalia kingdom is classified into the kingdom part of the taxonomic hierarchy. There are also different ways to classify the Visayan Warty Pig, the visayan warty pig can be classified in the domain, kingdom, phylum, kingdom, class, order, family, genus and species. The domain classified is a eukaryote. Eukaryotes are unbranded fatty acid chains attached to the glycerol by ester linkages. The kingdom identified is an animalia. Eukaryotic cells make up the multicellular organisms known as animals. The cells lack cell walls and are arranged into tissues. They don't engage in photosynthesis and get most of their nutrition through eating. Sponge, worms, insects, and vertebrates are some examples. The warty pig also can be identified in the phylum as a chordata. Chordata is to identify the animals with a backbone. It’s important to identify animals with backbone so we can know which have joints and those backbones can extend to the tail. We can also identify it by its class, which is a mammalia. Any group of vertebrate animals that produces milk from particular mammary glands in the mother are known as mammals, or simply mammalia. More distinguishing characteristics include: Hair Unlike all other vertebrates, which hinge their lower jaws on a separate bone called the quadrate, mammals' lower jaws are connected to their skulls directly. Sound waves are transmitted across the middle ear by a chain of three small bones. The abdominal cavity is divided from the heart and lungs by a muscular diaphragm. Just the left aortic arch is still present. (In reptiles, amphibians, and fish, both aortic arches are kept; the right aortic arch persists only in birds.) All mammals' mature red blood cells (erythrocytes) lack a nucleus, whereas all other vertebrates' erythrocytes are nucleated. They are also warm blooded. There is also order and the order identified in this is an Artiodactyla. The Artiodactyla of the foot's structure is very diagnostic. The majority of animals have two or four toes on each foot (except for Pecari and Tayassu). They are paraxonic, the artiodactyls. The majority of artiodactyls are herbivores, including browsers, grazers, and mixed feeders, with a few outliers (pigs and peccaries). Artiodactyls depend on microbes to aid in the breakdown of cellulose and lignin because mammals lack the enzymes required to do so. It’s family. Suinae is the domestic pig and similar species, such babirusas, are part of the Suinae subfamily of artiodactyl mammals, which comprises a number of the Suidae's living members as well as those species' closest relatives. The Suidae has a number of extinct species that are categorized in subfamilies other than the Suinae. However, there is disagreement over how to categorize the extinct members of the Suoidea, the larger group that consists of the Suidae, the Tayassuidae family of peccaries, and related extinct species. Different classifications differ in the number of subfamilies within the Suidae as well as their contents. The genus is sus which means The pig (Sus domesticus), sometimes known as swine, hog, or domestic pig to distinguish it from other Sus species, is a domesticated, omnivorous mammal with even toes and a hoof. It is disputed whether it belongs to Sus scrofa (the wild boar or Eurasian pig) or whether it is a separate species. A pig's head is relatively long and pointed when compared to the heads of other artiodactyls. Pigs are omnivores like their wild relatives, unlike the majority of even-toed ungulates, which are herbivorous. Pigs make snorting and grunting noises.And finally the species which the visayans scientific name is the S. (Sus) cebifrons. From these I can classify the Visayan Warty Pig in different ways. These are not the only way to classify them of course there are more complicated ways but this one identifies. Body parts, habitat and characteristics which are already shown. Taxidermy can also help identify unknown species and help categorize animals to their proper place. This also changed my likeness about taxidermy and made me appreciate it more because taxidermy helps and appreciates all animals and helps place them in their proper family which means which group should it be classified into because of looks and differences.

The two words bio and diversity are combined to form the word biodiversity. Greek-speaking people use the word "bio" to refer to life. Additionally, diversity refers to a wide range of attributes, characteristics, looks, genetics, biological differences, taxonomy, and other factors. Therefore, the term "biodiversity" refers to the variety of all living things on Earth. Ernst Haeckel, a German zoologist, was the first to use the term "ecology" to describe the "relation of the animal both to its organic as well as its inorganic environment." Biodiversity is to work together and have all life around a natural world to keep balance and support life which means habitat, connectivity, rare ecosystems, protected lands, recreation and culture, public health, genetic diversity. The issue of Biodiversity is human activities such as pollution and climate change and with the increasing population land use is more of a problem now also. It’s important to keep balance because let’s say one form of life goes extinct then that will cause a domino effect of how every form of life will and can be affected. So it’s important to keep every living thing safe. The visayan warty pig is important because it has a role in dispersing seeds and other plant species within the chain of islands in the Philippines. But this will not be possible now because they require dense forested areas but due to human activities they have lost a lot of their former habitats, a lot being in the lowlands. Ecology is important because it enriches our world with human well-being and prosperity. Providing knowledge of interdependence. between people and nature. It helps us understand how different forms of life live off each other with their environment. The visayan warty survives off roots, leaves and tubers of grass. Which makes it an important role in that environment.

This reflection taught me to appreciate animals more because we live off them and they live off us which keeps everything balanced. This is also important to take note of because if an animal goes extinct then it will cause the other animals that live off it to also lessen its population and cause the life in that environment not to thrive. An example would be mosquitoes. They may be an annoying insect but they also are important to plant life because plants grow on the mosquitoes since mosquitoes transfer pollinators. As a 15 year old, what I can do to keep my surrounding environment protected is to do simple things such as conserve water, use my own water jug instead of using plastic bottles, throw things in the proper place to not cause any pollution and keep places clean. I also started helping out my mom in growing plants as my IP has helped me grow more caring for plants. I also will reduce the use of electricity as it uses too much of earth's natural resources and we have to lessen the amount of usage so that we can let earth breathe also. Since my animal, the Visayan warty pig lives far from me, what I can do is help raise awareness because every animal is important in the cycle and we must keep them alive.