Spot the Frippet: superkingdom.

Do you live in a superkingdom?

If you're British then you'll probably be fairly sure you don't, because we don't do patriotism much. According to the very British Dr Johnson, patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

There are countries which rather enjoy being patriotic, though. This isn't necessarily a bad thing as long as the happiness and pride invoked isn't a way of deflecting the people's attention away from their perfectly natural misery.

The truth of the matter, though, is that we all live in superkingdoms. The Earth contains three: Archaea, Bacteria, and Eukarya, and we all inhabit one of them.

The Archaean superkingdom is hard to spot because the Archaea are very small and tend to live only in volcanic vents and hot springs.

The Bacterial superkingdom is pretty much everywhere, but is also hard to spot because bacteria are really tiny.

And the Eukaryotic superkingdom? 

I come with good news: Eukarya is the name of your very own - your very own - superkingdom. 

It's true you have to share it with fungi, plants and all animals, but, hey, it's still really quite something.


Photo by Moses. 

Isn't it?

Spot the Frippet: superkingdom. Super is Latin and means above, over or beyond. Kingdoms have been around in England pretty much ever since there's been an English language to describe them. The Old English was cyning.