Taxon

A group of living organisms defined by their position in an accepted classification system.  Thus a species is a taxon, as is a genus or family.  Taxonomy, the study of classification, is too big a subject to be discussed here, but is mentioned in this glossary to make the point that taxonomy of infectious agents and their hosts is important both when discussing particular zoonotic diseases and when making generalisations and comparisons.  Just as all primates are not the same (if you are reading this you are probably not a chimpanzee), so not all rodents are the same, and to assume they are may lead to confusion when, for example, developing control programmes.