The Biodiversity Song

SARAH

Everyone's part of a family in a tribe or a race or ethnic group by

right of birth,

And we're all in the subspecies we call Homo sapiens sapiens,

the only known surviving one on Earth;

We're in the species Homo sapiens, which is in the genus

Homo, in the family that we call Hominidae,

And in the anthropoid suborder with the apes and the monkeys, and

also all the human family.

It is so biodiverse, and we're so homogeneous,

To realize how alike we are, it doesn't take a genius;

So many classes and phyla,

From Amoeba to Homo to Hyla,

It's so biodiverse, and we're not.

And we're in the primate order, if you include all the lemurs, the

sifakas, indris and the tarsiers,

And the placental infraclass, with dogs and mice and other non-

pouched live-bearing little critters that bear furs.

Along with the marsupials, we're in the therian subclass, and, along

with echidnas and platypi,

In the class of Mammalia -- from the kangaroos and wombats to the

dolphins, whales and hippopotami.

And still, our genes are relatively shared if you think about the

classes in the tetrapod infraphylum,

With amphibians and reptiles, and such birds as the chickens, or the

cuckoos in the old insane asylum;

If you include the fish, we're in the vertebrate subphylum, and,

along with acorn worms, we are chordates,

And that's just one of the phyla in the animal kingdom, along with

molluscs, sponges and coelenterates.

It is so biodiverse, and we're so homogeneous,

To realize how alike we are, it doesn't take a genius;

With each order and division,

Subspecies and precision,

It's so biodiverse . . . what are we?

And besides that giant kingdom of the arthropods and brachiopods, and

annelids, or else segmented worms,

And flatworms, bryozoans, tardigrades, onychophorans, sipunculoids

and some echinoderms,

There are other living kingdoms, with the fungi and such plants as

moss, sundews, ferns, magnolias, rice and beans,

Not to mention the two kingdoms of the protists and prokaryotes, such

as algae, protozoa and blue-greens.

And even simpler and more biodiverse yet are the viruses, such as the

common cold and HIV,

And simpler yet than those are little entities called viroids, specks

much too infinitesimal to see;

And simplest of them all are the prions, which are little more than

fleeting strands of simple DNA,

Little reproductive strains formed from self-replicating patterns

that started from some old, primordial clay.

It is so biodiverse, and we're so homogeneous,

To realize how alike we are, it doesn't take a genius;

One thing's sure: we're the solution

To years of evolution,

It's so biodiverse, and we rule!