What it does
Biologists sort living things into groups so that each group shares important features. One famous way, proposed by R. H. Whittaker in 1969, splits all cellular life into five kingdoms:
- Monera: bacteria and cyanobacteria, whose cells have no true nucleus (prokaryotic);
- Protista: single-celled organisms with a nucleus, such as Amoeba, Paramecium, Euglena and diatoms;
- Fungi: yeasts, moulds and mushrooms, with chitin cell walls, absorbing their food;
- Plantae: many-celled organisms with cellulose walls that (almost always) make their own food;
- Animalia: many-celled organisms with no cell walls that take in their food.
This page turns that into a game. It shows a simple drawing of an organism with four clues (nucleus or not, how many cells, the cell wall, how it feeds) and you pick the kingdom. A second mode lets you set the four features yourself and explains which kingdom they lead to, including the odd cases: yeast (one cell, but a fungus), dodder (a plant that does not photosynthesise) and mixes that fit no kingdom at all.
It fits the Class 11 biology chapters on the living world and biological classification, and the diversity and classification chapter of Class 9 science. Look inside the cells first with the cell explorer; then split the animal kingdom into phyla with the animal classification key and follow organisms from kingdom down to species on the taxonomy ladder.
How to use it
- Sort organisms. Read the clues under the drawing and tap a kingdom. A right answer turns green and explains the rule; a wrong one turns red and repeats the clues. Tap Next organism for another. The score counts first tries only.
- See all organisms opens a gallery of all 18 drawings with their kingdoms.
- Build from features. Tap one answer for each question. The kingdom (or “no kingdom fits”) appears with the reason, the matching column of the table is highlighted, and any example organisms with exactly those features are named.
- The table puts the five kingdoms side by side: cell type, cell wall, body organisation, nutrition and examples.
Worked example
Suppose the card shows Yeast with the clues “eukaryotic, one cell, chitin wall, takes in food”. Many people tap Protista, because it is a single cell. The page answers “Not Protista” and repeats the clues. Tap Fungi: “Right: Fungi. Eukaryotic with a chitin wall and absorbing its food: a fungus (yeast is a single-celled one).”
In Build from features, choose a true nucleus, many cells, cellulose wall and “takes it in”. The answer is Plantae: “Many-celled with cellulose walls: a plant, even though this one does not make all its own food (like the parasite Cuscuta)”, and the example list names dodder (Cuscuta).
Tips
- Check the nucleus first: no nucleus means Monera, whatever else is true.
- Then the wall: chitin points to fungi, cellulose to plants, no wall (with many cells) to animals.
- Single eukaryotic cells that are not yeasts go to Protista, whether they photosynthesise (diatoms), eat (Amoeba) or both (Euglena).
FAQ
Where are viruses? Viruses are not cells, so they sit outside the five kingdoms, as do viroids. Lichens are partnerships of an alga and a fungus, so they do not fit one kingdom either.
Is this how scientists classify today? Not exactly. DNA studies split Monera into Bacteria and Archaea and showed that “Protista” mixes many unrelated groups. The five kingdoms remain a useful first map and are what the school syllabus uses.
Is anything stored? No, the game runs in your browser and nothing is saved or sent. fibub is not part of NCERT; the topics follow the syllabus, but the words, drawings and examples are our own.
Where the numbers come from
- The five-kingdom scheme (R. H. Whittaker, 1969) and the features used to sort organisms into it are standard biology. The summary table, the clues and the drawings are fibub's own; no textbook text, figures or tables are copied.
- A teaching model: real classification uses many more features and DNA, and modern schemes have more groups than five.
Standard scientific values, such as constants, atomic weights and melting points, are facts found in every textbook; we name where ours were checked. If you are an author or publisher and want a value, a credit or a table changed or removed, tell us and we will act quickly.
Last updated 2026-11-09.