Adding on the to excellent and accurate info Anthony (who eats Powdermilk Biscuits and Raw Bits, and Banks at the Sign of the Sock thanks to Garrison Keillor) Keep Picking Cucumbers Or Father Gets Sore Huh? Well, there are some excellent past posts from Bob Church on multiple reasons for controversy over species naming of domestic ferrets which anyone can find in the FML Archives (See each day's digest for the URL in the header.), so let's look at the usual terminology for Black Footed Ferrets, European Polecats, and Steepe Polecats: Keep = Kingdom Animalia Picking = Phylum (plural Phyla) Chordata (and Subphylum Vertebrata) Cucumbers = Class Mammalia Or = Order Carnivora Father = Family (Note that this is capitalized here to differentiate it from the casual use of the word.) Mustelidae Gets = Genus (plural Genera) Mustela Sore = Species (plural Species) Black Footed Ferret = nigripes European Polcat = putorius Steepe Polecat = eversmanni There can be subsets to these categories. Notice that when you use a binomial (two name) that the Genus is capitalized but the Species is not, also how to abbreviate with the initial of the Genus: Mustela nigripes = M. nigripes because it is assumed that anyone who knows the binomial will place which Genus is under discussion. Also in Genus Mustela besides those three are such species as M. macrodon (sea mink), M. vison (American mink), M. strigidorsa (back-striped weasel), M. nudipes (Malaysian weasel), M. lutreolina (Indonesian mountain weasel), M. sibirica (Siberian weasel), M. lutreola (European mink), and at least a half dozen other species. So, as with those hollow wooden dolls which fit within each other the most inclusive is the Kingdom, then you work down to greater and greater divisions with species being the smallest. The Species fit within their Genera, the Genera fit within their Families, etc. all the way up till you reach Kingdom. In Family Mustelidae are not only those animals in Genus Mustela, but also badgers, wolverine, otters, Tayra, stoats, martins, fishers, grisons, Vormilla (Hope I spelled that right; it's a fascinating animal, too.), etc. Let's say that I had wanted to trace the Tayra (a fascinating animal). Everything would be the same until Genus and the binomial would be Eira barbara, a different genus. You get the idea. Just keep remembering those dolls which sequentually within each other, and remember to: Keep picking cucumbers or father gets sore! That help? -- Sukie (not a vet) Ferret Health List co-moderator http://www.smartgroups.com/groups/ferrethealth FHL Archives fan http://ferrethealth.org/archive/ replacing http://fhl.sonic-weasel.org International Ferret Congress advisor http://www.ferretcongress.org [Posted in FML issue 5175]