Classification of Living Things Word Search Printable

A taxonomy vocabulary sheet to print with its key: the eight ranks, the three domains and the vertebrate groups.

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Classification of Living Things Word Search

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0 of 20 words found

TERASRAYOTOEZAO

OFEEUKARYAUBDTJ

CAPGUXMADTHGBYM

LMTERQPNODRYPSC

AIINTNHKRMAPHON

SLLUAFITNCTNYRI

SYESEIBHROANLDM

VONYAOIDEHHEUEA

ARCHAEAOIBEQMRM

GAOLSANMKINGDOM

BACTERIAFRESEZA

GOPGQRWIIDAYIBL

SOPEHSENSPECIES

ETAXONOYHFUNGIS

VERTEBRATEKYRTS

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DomainDOMAIN
KingdomKINGDOM
PhylumPHYLUM
ClassCLASS
OrderORDER
FamilyFAMILY
GenusGENUS
SpeciesSPECIES
RankRANK
TaxonTAXON
FungiFUNGI
ArchaeaARCHAEA
BacteriaBACTERIA
EukaryaEUKARYA
VertebrateVERTEBRATE
MammalMAMMAL
BirdBIRD
ReptileREPTILE
AmphibianAMPHIBIAN
FishFISH

20 words from the Classification of Living Things Key Terms list.

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Answer key: Classification of Living Things Word Search

TERASRAYOTOEZAO

OFEEUKARYAUBDTJ

CAPGUXMADTHGBYM

LMTERQPNODRYPSC

AIINTNHKRMAPHON

SLLUAFITNCTNYRI

SYESEIBHROANLDM

VONYAOIDEHHEUEA

ARCHAEAOIBEQMRM

GAOLSANMKINGDOM

BACTERIAFRESEZA

GOPGQRWIIDAYIBL

SOPEHSENSPECIES

ETAXONOYHFUNGIS

VERTEBRATEKYRTS

DOMAIN, KINGDOM, PHYLUM, CLASS, ORDER, FAMILY, GENUS, SPECIES, RANK, TAXON, FUNGI, ARCHAEA, BACTERIA, EUKARYA, VERTEBRATE, MAMMAL, BIRD, REPTILE, AMPHIBIAN, FISH

Next step Find the parts of a cell Print the animal word search

All 115 words

Ranks of Classification 26

Binomial Describes the two-term naming system: the genus first, then the specific name.
Clade A group made up of a common ancestor and all of its descendants.
Cladogram A diagram that shows evolutionary relations between groups of organisms.
Class The rank that is a group of related orders.
Common name What an organism is called in the normal language of everyday life.
Dichotomous key An identification aid with a fixed sequence of steps, each with two alternatives.
Division In botany, the traditional name for a level now considered equivalent to phylum.
Domain The highest rank, taking in all organisms together.
Epithet With "specific", the second part of the scientific name of a species.
Family The rank that holds related genera; walnut and hickory trees share one.
Genus The rank above species; its name is the first part of a two-part name.
Group A set of organisms placed together because of shared characteristics.
Hierarchy An arrangement of items placed above, below or at the same level as one another.
Italics The slanted type in which both parts of a scientific name are set in normal text.
Kingdom The rank under domain; each one is divided into phyla.

Show all 115 words (100 more)

Ranks of Classification, continued

Latin Both parts of a scientific name use the grammatical forms of this language.
Nomenclature A system of names or terms, or the rules for forming them.
Order The rank that holds related families; all owls belong to one.
Phylogeny A branching diagram that shows the evolutionary history of a set of species.
Phylum The rank below kingdom; in botany the same level is traditionally called a division.
Rank The level a group of living things occupies in the hierarchy.
Species The basic unit of classification; each one is given a two-part name.
Systematics The study of the diversification of living forms and their relationships through time.
Taxon A group of organisms that taxonomists see as forming a unit; the plural is taxa.
Tribe A level above genus but below family and subfamily.
Variety In botany, a level below that of species and subspecies.

Kingdoms and Domains 33

Algae A large and diverse group of photosynthetic organisms that excludes the land plants.
Amoeba A single-celled organism able to alter its shape by extending pseudopods.
Animalia The kingdom of animals, multicellular organisms that consume organic material.
Archaea One of the three domains; its members are single-celled and have no nucleus.
Autotroph An organism that converts energy from non-living sources into energy stored in compounds.
Bacteria A large domain of microorganisms that often consist of one cell and have no nucleus.
Chitin The material in the cell walls of fungi that helps place them in a kingdom of their own.
Chromista A proposed but controversial kingdom of eukaryotes with similar photosynthetic organelles.
Conifer A woody plant, mostly evergreen, that reproduces with cones.
Euglena A genus of single-celled eukaryotes that have a flagellum.
Eukarya The domain of every organism whose cells have a nucleus.
Eukaryote An organism whose cells have a distinct nucleus.
Fauna The term used for the animals of a particular region or time.
Flora The term used for the plants of a particular region or time.
Fungi The kingdom that includes yeasts, molds and mushrooms.
Heterotroph An organism that cannot produce its own food and takes nutrition from other organisms.
Kelp A large brown seaweed that, despite its appearance, is not a plant.
Lichen A colony of algae or cyanobacteria living among the filaments of fungi.
Microbe An organism of microscopic size.
Monera Historically, a kingdom made up of single-celled organisms that lack a nucleus.
Moss A small, flowerless plant that typically forms dense green clumps or mats.
Multicellular Describes an organism that consists of more than one cell.
Mushroom The fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus.
Nucleus The membrane-bound organelle found in the cells of eukaryotes.
Paramecium A genus of single-celled ciliates, often abundant in ponds.
Plantae The kingdom of plants, which mostly obtain their energy from sunlight.
Prokaryote A cellular organism that lacks a distinct cell nucleus.
Protista A kingdom for eukaryotes that are not animals, land plants or fungi.
Protozoa Single-celled eukaryotes that feed on organic matter such as other microorganisms.
Slime mold A small organism with single-celled and multicellular forms in its life cycle.
Unicellular Describes an organism that consists of a single cell.
Virus Not made of cells, so it is not included in the domain system.
Yeast Any fungus that grows primarily in a single-celled form.

Vertebrate Groups 30

Amphibian A four-limbed, cold-blooded animal such as a frog or salamander.
Aves The class that birds make up.
Backbone An everyday name for the vertebral column.
Bird An animal of the class Aves, with feathers and a toothless beak.
Cetacean A marine mammal such as a whale, dolphin or porpoise.
Chordate An animal of the phylum Chordata, which has a notochord at some stage of its life.
Crocodilian A semiaquatic, predatory reptile such as an alligator or a gharial.
Ectotherm An animal more commonly referred to as cold-blooded.
Endotherm An organism that keeps its body warm largely by heat released inside it.
Feathers The distinctive outer covering of birds.
Fish A gill-bearing animal that lives in water and lacks limbs with digits.
Frog A short-bodied, tailless amphibian.
Fur With hair, one of the characteristics of mammals.
Gills Organs that many water animals use to extract dissolved oxygen from water.
Jawless Describes the fishes, hagfish and lampreys among them, grouped as Agnatha.
Lamprey A fish with no jaws and a toothed, funnel-like, sucking mouth.
Lizard The common name for a squamate reptile that is not a snake.
Mammal An animal with milk-producing glands for feeding its young, and fur or hair.
Marsupial A mammal whose young are born in a relatively undeveloped state.
Monotreme A mammal that lays eggs: the platypus or an echidna.
Notochord An elastic, rod-like structure found in chordates.
Primate A member of the order of mammals that includes lemurs, monkeys and apes.
Reptile An animal such as a turtle, crocodile, lizard or snake.
Rodent A mammal with a single pair of continuously growing incisors in each jaw.
Salamander An amphibian with a lizard-like appearance and a tail in both larvae and adults.
Scales Small rigid plates that grow out of an animal's skin to provide protection.
Shark A cartilaginous fish with five to seven gill slits on each side.
Tetrapod An animal of the group whose defining trait is having four limbs.
Turtle A reptile with a special shell developed mainly from its ribs.
Vertebrate An animal that has a backbone and a skull.

Invertebrate Groups 26

Annelid A segmented worm such as an earthworm or leech.
Arachnid An arthropod such as a spider, scorpion, tick or mite; adults have eight legs.
Arthropod An animal with an exoskeleton, a segmented body and paired jointed appendages.
Bivalve A water animal whose soft body is enclosed by a hinged pair of half-shells.
Centipede A predatory arthropod with one pair of legs per body segment.
Cephalopod A sea animal such as a squid, octopus, cuttlefish or nautilus.
Cnidarian An aquatic animal such as a jellyfish, sea anemone or coral.
Coral A sea animal that typically forms compact colonies of many identical polyps.
Crustacean A mainly aquatic arthropod such as a shrimp, crab or lobster.
Earthworm A soil-dwelling animal that belongs to the phylum Annelida.
Echinoderm An animal such as a starfish, sea urchin or sea cucumber.
Exoskeleton A skeleton on the exterior of an animal.
Flatworm A relatively simple, unsegmented, soft-bodied animal with no body cavity.
Gastropod A snail or slug.
Insect A member of the largest group of arthropods, with a three-part body and six jointed legs.
Invertebrate An animal that neither develops nor retains a vertebral column.
Jellyfish A mainly free-swimming marine animal with an umbrella-shaped bell.
Mollusk A member of the second-largest animal phylum, which includes snails and octopuses.
Myriapod An arthropod such as a millipede or centipede.
Nematode A roundworm.
Octopus A soft-bodied, eight-limbed mollusk.
Porifera The phylum of sponges; the name means pore bearer.
Snail A shelled gastropod.
Spider An air-breathing arthropod with eight limbs that extrudes silk.
Sponge A filter feeder of the phylum Porifera, mostly marine and typically bound to the seabed.
Starfish An echinoderm generally shaped like a star.

How this list was compiled: Own work: the word list and every clue were written for this page. The facts in the clues were checked on 2026-10-08 against English Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0), among them the articles on taxonomic rank (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxonomic_rank), the kingdom (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_(biology)), the domain (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_(taxonomy)), binomial nomenclature (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binomial_nomenclature), the vertebrate (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertebrate) and the invertebrate (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invertebrate). Licence: own work

How it works

This classification of living things word search, printable with its key, opens on 20 words, among them the eight ranks from Domain to Species, the three domains, and Vertebrate with Mammal, Bird, Reptile, Amphibian and Fish.

Read the full guide

Ranks and naming words

Ranks of Classification, under Start from a list, has 26 words: the eight ranks, then Taxon, Clade, Binomial, Cladogram and Dichotomous key among the rest.

Kingdoms, vertebrates and invertebrates

Kingdoms and Domains has 33 words: Animalia, Plantae, Fungi, Protista and Monera, and organisms such as Amoeba, Yeast and Kelp. Vertebrate Groups has 30, with Marsupial, Monotreme and Salamander. Invertebrate Groups has 26, from Arthropod and Mollusk to Cnidarian and Echinoderm.

Invertebrate is kept out of the hard list, because Vertebrate reads inside it.

Questions and answers

What are the 8 levels of classification in order?

Domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus and species. Kingdom to species are the seven main taxonomic ranks; domain, proposed in 1990, is often placed before them as an eighth.

What are the kingdoms of living things?

Textbooks in the United States have traditionally used six: Animalia, Plantae, Fungi, Protista, Archaea and Bacteria. Textbooks in some other countries, the United Kingdom and India among them, have used five, with Monera in place of the last two.

What are the three domains of life?

Archaea, Bacteria and Eukarya. The first two are prokaryotes: one-celled microbes with no nucleus inside a membrane. Every organism with a cell nucleus belongs to Eukarya. Viruses are not included.

What are the classes of vertebrates?

Traditional taxonomy lists seven: three classes of fishes (jawless, cartilaginous and bony) and four of tetrapods (amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals). The list Vertebrate Groups uses the five everyday names: Fish, Amphibian, Reptile, Bird and Mammal.

Does the printable come with an answer key?

Yes. It prints on two pages, Letter or A4: the puzzle first, then the key. With Show clues, not words ticked, Genus prints as "The rank above species; its name is the first part of a two-part name."

All 115 words

Ranks of Classification 26

Ranks of Classification, continued

Kingdoms and Domains 33

Vertebrate Groups 30

Invertebrate Groups 26

How it works

Ranks and naming words

Kingdoms, vertebrates and invertebrates

Questions and answers

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