Question

Discuss the Two kingdom system of classification. List its merits and demerits.

Answer 1

The organisms were divided into plants and animals based on their physical characteristics like mobility and the ability to make their own food. This is called the Two kingdom system of classification. E.g. Plants - organisms that are not motile, Animals - organisms that are motile.

Merits

• It was easier to place all the living organisms into two categories based on specific features
  
• An initiation to classify organisms later helped us to understand the pitfalls of two kingdom classification and develop a different one.

Demerits

• Fungi like mushroom could not be classified into either one of these kingdoms
• Prokaryotes were not considered in this classification