Combining adjacent polygons sharing similar trait into single polygon using ArcGIS Desktop?

I have a large dataset of habitat classes which I have further simplified down into my own unique classes.

However, it resulted in there being habitats adjacent to each other with the same forest classification system.

Is there any way to join these two (or however many there are touching that are classed as the same type) adjacent polygons into a single larger polygon?

When I use the tool Dissolve, it takes all of the habitats of the same class for the entire map and creates a single polygon.

Answer

Try the Dissolve tool. From the help:

Use the Dissolve tool when you want to aggregate features based on a specified attribute or attributes. For example, you could take a feature class containing sales data collected on a county-by-county basis and use Dissolve to create a feature class containing contiguous sales regions based on the name of the salesperson in each county. Dissolve creates the sales regions by removing the boundaries between counties represented by the same salesperson.

_{(source: arcgis.com)}

To avoid creating multi-part features, uncheck the "Create multipart features" box.