Biological ScienceOrganism DiversityYear 5 Science

Fungi, bacteria, species and scientific names

What this lesson covers

Fungi: mushrooms, moulds and yeasts, and why they are a group of their own
Bacteria that help us, bacteria that do nothing to us, and bacteria that make us sick
What scientists mean by a species
How two-part scientific names work
Extinct species such as the moa, and what they tell us about how life has changed
Lucy Moore and her work describing New Zealand's plants

Key idea

Fungi: not plants, not animals

Fungi (say "fun-guy" or "fun-ghee") are a group of living things that includes mushrooms, moulds and yeasts.
Fungi cannot make their own food from sunlight like plants. They grow into their food, such as dead leaves, rotting logs or bread, and soak it up.
They cannot move around and hunt like animals either, so they are a separate group.
Most of a fungus is a web of very thin threads called hyphae, hidden in the soil or the food. A mushroom is only the part that pops up to spread tiny seeds called spores.
Many fungi are poisonous. Never touch or eat a mushroom you find outside.

Kind of fungus	What it looks like	Where you find it
Mushroom	A cap on a stalk	Lawns, forest floors, rotting logs
Mould	Fuzzy patches of white, green, blue or black	Old bread, fruit, damp walls
Yeast	Too small to see; a beige powder when dried	Bread dough, where it makes the dough rise

A mushroom above and below the ground. Above: the cap, the gills under the cap where spores are made, and the stalk. Below: a web of thin threads called hyphae spreading through the soil.

Key idea

Try it: plant, animal or fungus?

Key idea

Bacteria: helpful, harmless and harmful

Bacteria are microorganisms. Each one is a single tiny cell, so you need a microscope to see it. A cell is the smallest living part of an organism.
Some bacteria are helpful. Bacteria turn milk into yoghurt, and bacteria in your gut help you digest food.
Many bacteria are neutral, which means they do us no good and no harm. Huge numbers live on your skin without you noticing.
Some bacteria are harmful. They can cause illnesses such as food poisoning. Washing your hands and keeping food cold helps stop them spreading.

Key idea

Try it: helpful, neutral or harmful?

Worked example

Example: mould in a sealed bag

Room 12 sealed one damp slice and one dry slice of bread in separate plastic bags. Each day they looked through the bags and estimated how much of each slice was covered in mould.
The bags were closed systems: nothing could get in or out. What do the results show?

Room 12's own estimates of mould cover
Day	1	3	5	7
Damp slice	0%	5%	30%	60%
Dry slice	0%	0%	5%	15%

A line graph of how much of the slice was covered in mould over 7 days. The damp slice rises from 0% on day 1 to 60% on day 7. The dry slice stays at 0% until day 3 and reaches 15% by day 7.

Nothing could get into the sealed bagsso the mould spores were already on the bread
Damp slice reached 60%, dry slice only 15%compare day 7
Mould grew on both slices, and much faster on the damp one, so mould grows best with water

Key idea

What is a species?

A species is one kind of living thing. Members of a species can mate with each other and have young, and those young can grow up and have young of their own.
All dogs are one species, so a poodle and a labrador can have puppies that grow up and have puppies.
A horse and a donkey can have a baby called a mule, but mules almost never have young of their own. So horses and donkeys are two different species.

Key idea

Scientific names

The same organism can have many common names in different places and languages. To avoid mix-ups, every known species also has a scientific name that is the same everywhere in the world.
A scientific name has two parts. The first part is the genus, a small group of very close relatives. The second part names the species in that genus.
The genus starts with a capital letter and the species part is all lower case. The name is printed in italics, or underlined when handwritten.

Common name	Scientific name
Human	Homo sapiens
Kauri	Agathis australis
Pōhutukawa	Metrosideros excelsa
North Island brown kiwi	Apteryx mantelli

Worked example

Example: reading kiwi names

Three New Zealand birds are named Apteryx mantelli (North Island brown kiwi), Apteryx haastii (great spotted kiwi) and Apteryx owenii (little spotted kiwi).
What do these names tell you about how the three birds are related?

First word: Apteryx in all threethey share a genus
Second word: mantelli, haastii, oweniithree different species
They are three different species of kiwi that are close relatives in the same genus

Key idea

Species that have died out

A species is extinct when no living members are left anywhere.
Scientists classify extinct species too, using bones, feathers, eggshells and fossils.
Moa were giant flightless birds that lived only in New Zealand. They were hunted to extinction, and none have been alive for about 500 years.
Extinct species show that the living things on Earth have changed over time: some groups have disappeared and new ones have appeared.

Source: Te Ara, Moa (Trevor H. Worthy)
Moa fact	Detail
Number of species	9
Died out	About 500 years ago
Bird group	Ratites, the same group as kiwi, emus and ostriches
Closest living relatives	Tinamous, flying birds of South America

Key idea

Lucy Moore, plant scientist

A botanist is a scientist who studies plants.
Lucy Moore was a New Zealand botanist, born in Warkworth in 1906.
She studied seaweeds, weeds and tussock grasslands, and then led the huge job of finishing the first volume of Flora of New Zealand, a book that describes the country's native plants so people can identify them.
She also co-wrote the second volume with Elizabeth Edgar. Botanists still use these books to name and classify New Zealand plants.

Source: Te Ara, Dictionary of New Zealand Biography: Moore, Lucy Beatrice (John Morton)
Year	What happened
1906	Born in Warkworth
1938	Started work at the Botany Division of the DSIR in Wellington
1961	Flora of New Zealand, volume one, published
1970	Volume two, written with Elizabeth Edgar, published
1987	Died, aged 80

Common mistakes

Mushrooms are plants because they grow out of the ground.
Mushrooms are fungi: they cannot make food from sunlight, so they feed by growing into and soaking up their food.
All bacteria are germs that make you sick.
Only some bacteria are harmful; many are harmless, and some, like those in yoghurt and your gut, are helpful.
The human scientific name is written homo Sapiens.
The genus has the capital and the species part is lower case: Homo sapiens, in italics.
Any two animals that can have a baby together are the same species.
Their young must also be able to have young; a horse and a donkey make a mule, which almost never can.

Try it at home

Grow mould in a sealed bag

You need: 2 slices of bread, 2 zip-lock bags, sticky tape, a few drops of water, a marker pen, paper and a pencil

Sprinkle a few drops of water on one slice of bread. Leave the other slice dry.
Put each slice in its own bag, seal it, tape the seal shut, and label the bags "damp" and "dry".
Leave both bags side by side in a warm, dark cupboard.
Each day for a week, look at the bags without opening them and write down how much of each slice is covered in mould.
Look for fuzzy white patches first, then green, blue or black ones, and for mould growing faster on the damp slice.

Safety: Mould spores can make people sick, so never open the bags; at the end an adult should put them in the rubbish still sealed.

Your turn

Is yeast a plant, an animal or a fungus?

The bacteria that turn milk into yoghurt: are they helpful, neutral or harmful to us?

In the scientific name Homo sapiens, which word is the genus, and which word starts with a capital letter?

A horse and a donkey have a mule, and the mule cannot have young. Are horses and donkeys the same species?

Are Apteryx mantelli and Apteryx owenii close relatives? How can you tell?

Show answer

1. A fungus. 2. Helpful. 3. Homo is the genus, and it is the word with the capital letter; sapiens is all lower case. 4. No. The young of one species must be able to have young of their own, and mules cannot. 5. Yes, because they share the same genus name, Apteryx.

Summary

Recap

Fungi, such as mushrooms, moulds and yeasts, are neither plants nor animals. Never touch wild mushrooms.
Bacteria are tiny single cells; some are helpful, many are neutral and some are harmful.
A species is a group whose members can breed together and have young that can also breed.
Every species has a two-part scientific name: Genus species, such as Homo sapiens.
Classification includes extinct species like the moa, which shows life on Earth has changed.
Lucy Moore helped describe and name New Zealand's plants in Flora of New Zealand.

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