[Taxacom] "Protista"

[Stephen Thorpe]

some of the replies to my last email lead me to make the following comment:

the classification of life into "kingdoms" (or "regna") doesn't really  
work. For a start, there are the "problematic" viruses - in or out of  
the biotic realm??? But, just to talk about eucaryotes, it is  
completely obvious that "Protista" are paraphyletic with respect to  
Animalia (=Metazoa), Plantae, and Fungi. This leads to a dilemma:  
either (1) animals and plants are no longer to be considered kingdoms  
of life (which takes us disturbingly far away from the original  
meaning of "kingdom"), or (2) we must elevate a plethora of obscure  
"protist" groups to the level of kingdom, and run the risk of our  
beloved animals and plants just being sub-sub-sub-...clades of some  
newly recognised kingdom!

Someone please go back in time an kill Hennig, before he invented  
cladistics!!! [just kidding!]

S

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