We need to know about kingdom Monera first as we move forward to understand all the kingdoms in the classification of living organisms.

Kingdom Monera

It is very surprising to know that bacteria alone occupy a complete kingdom in the hierarchy of living organisms. They are the omnipresent organisms of the living world. We can find bacteria almost everywhere. This property can be owed to the fact that bacteria have a wide range of variety and many of them are adapted to survive in extreme environmental conditions. A large number of bacteria also live on other organisms as parasites.

Bacteria can be classified into four major types based on their shape:

• Coccus – Spherical shaped
• Bacillus – rod-shaped
• Vibrium – comma-shaped
• Spirillium – spiral-shaped

As far as the mode of nutrition of bacteria is concerned, some of them are autotrophic while rest of them are heterotrophic.

Archaebacteria

Archaebacteria constitute those bacteria of the kingdom Monera which survive in extreme environments. The secret of this characteristic lies in the cell wall structure of these bacteria which allows them to withstand harsh conditions.

Eubacteria

Eubacteria are otherwise known as true bacteria. They help in a variety of processes like decomposition, nitrogen fixation, antibiotics production, etc. Some bacteria are pathogenic in nature and cause diseases when in the body. For example, typhoid, cholera, tuberculosis, etc. Bacteria majorly reproduce by fission and under unfavourable conditions, by spores. In some rare cases, bacteria reproduce sexually which includes the transfer of DNA material from one bacterium to another.

Monera also include Mycoplasma, which are the smallest known organisms that can survive without oxygen. They do not possess a cell wall and many of them are known to be pathogenic in nature.

We have thus gone through the kingdom Monera in brief. For further learning, join BYJU’S.