Item — HN Reader

Interesting stuff. The talk of a new kingdom or supra-kingdom (domain? empire?) prompted me to see how we currently model the tree of life. (Something I probably haven't known since elementary school!)

Within the life of some readers here: kingdoms.count() -> 4, 5, 6, 3, 8, 6, 7, ...

Currently, seven kingdoms: animalia, fungi, plantae, chromista, protozoa, archaea, bacteria [1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_(biology)

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Note that "domain" has been added on top of "kingdom" for quite some time now; that's probably why they went with "supra-kingdom", as this division seems to be above kingdom but below domain (since these creatures are still eukaryotes).

There was some tantalizing evidence that there may be a fourth domain besides bacteria,archaea and eukaryotes. Was news couple of years ago, but I didn't hear anything about it since. https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20265-biologys-dark-m...

So, uh ... plants and animals wasn't enough? I feel so last millennium.