Candidatus phyla
Since the taxonomic category phylum is not currently covered by the ☞ ICNP, Candidatus phyla cannot be distinguished from other phyla by not having a validly published name. We here treat a phylum as a ☞ Candidatus phylum if it lacks a child taxon with a validly published name. Parent taxa to which no genus is directly or indirectly assigned are not currently shown in the LPSN hierarchy. Accordingly, the names of most Candidatus phyla do not show up in the hierarchy. While they can still be found using the advanced search, we have created this page to remind users of the presence of such names in LPSN. The numbers of validly published species names per phylum are given on the statistics page.