Species Act. Was Franklin’s bumblebee a good candidate for
protection?
Thorp agreed to help find answers. He began driving several
times a year into the heart of Franklin’s territory and counting
bumblebees. Within this small region, the bee was common. “I
could walk down and see [Franklin’s bumblebees] on every patch of
flowers,” he recalled.
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
All plants and animals have common names, such as the
Shasta daisy and the peregrine falcon. Biologists also use a
scientific naming system created by Swedish scientist Carolus
Linnaeus in the mid-eighteenth century. The system uses Latin-
based terms to identify each plant or animal’s genus (group)
and species (specific kind within that group). For example, all
bumblebees belong to the same genus,
Bombus
, so all share
that first name. Each species within
Bombus
has a distinct
second name. Franklin’s bumblebee is called
Bombus franklini
,
while the western bumblebee is
Bombus occidentalis
.
Genus and species are the most precise classifications for
living things. But these categories fall under a larger naming
umbrella of eight levels: domain, kingdom, phylum, class,
order, family, genus, and species. You can see the hierarchy
by looking at Franklin’s bumblebee. It belongs to the domain
Eukarya, a group that includes all plants and animals. Within
that category, Franklin’s bumblebee belongs to the kingdom
Animalia (the animal kingdom), the phylum Arthropoda
(animals with jointed legs and no backbones), the class Insecta
(insects), the order Hymenoptera (a group of insects including
ants, wasps, and bees), the family Apidae (bees), and the
genus
Bombus
(bumblebees). The species name
Bombus
franklini
is the designation for Franklin’s bumblebee. Each kind
of living thing has its own species name, and members of the
same species can mate with one another.
9
The Last Franklin’s Bumblebee
