 Principles of Systematics, Module 26 Taxonomic Characters In this module, we will discuss what are different taxonomic characters First of all, we will define character What is character? Character is basically an attribute on the basis of which we can differentiate one taxon from another taxon What does this mean? It means that a character is such an attribute, such a quality of an organism With which we can separate a group from a taxon from another taxon Character is a heritable trait We can explain character in different character states What is character state? Character state is basically a variation or a variant of any character For example, if we talk about hairs, there are hairs in mammals So hairs are a character Now, some organisms are like this In which hairs are present, some organisms do not have hairs So these are different character states That hairs are present and hairs are absent Similarly, some characters are like this Which are present in binary states For example, we have read the example of hairs In which hairs are present and hairs are absent Similarly, some characters have more character states We call them multiple state or multi-state characters For example, if we talk about flowers Then in a species, there are different shades of flowers For example, we call them yellow, white or pink So these are three different character states Similarly, if we talk about nucleotides So nucleotide is a character But one nucleotide can be present in four different character states Like adenine, guanine, cytosine and thiamine Now, what should be the qualities of a key character? First of all, a character should be present in all the members of a taxon This is the identity of a good character Similarly, a character is fairly stable and durable One of the members of a species is constant This is a durable character Similarly, this is a qualitative character And it can be easily detected without any special equipment Or dissection or histological parameters Or without preparation, this character can be seen So this is the importance of key characters Which should be present in an organism On the basis of these characters, we can basically separate a taxon from another taxon What is a taxon? A taxon is basically a group of organisms Which get attributes like this