Family (biology)

A hierarchy of important ranks

In biology, a family is a taxonomic rank. Each family contains one or more genera. The Family is normally in beetween an order and a genus.

Usually, the name of the family ends with an "idae" for animals, and "aceae" for plants. Sometimes there are also subfamilies and superfamilies. Subfamilies end with "inae" or "oideae".

For example, walnuts (genus Juglans) and hickories (genus Carya) both belong to the walnut family (the Juglandaceae).

The family hierarchy contains larger catergories of families like superfamilys and smaller ones like tribes and subfamilies, from greatest to smallest, the hierarchy goes like: superfamily, family, subfamily, tribe, and subtribe.