144 '■"f ANIMAL KINGDOM 



Figure 7.1. Karl Linnaeus (1707-1778), the father of modern taxonomy. In his day 

 even the author's name was published in Latin, so that his name is more frequently seen 

 as Carolus Linnaeus. His father was born before surnames were common, and adopted 

 Linnaeus for himself and his family. Karl was establishing binomial nomenclature for 

 the natural world at the same time that surnames were being required by law in Europe. 



dwarfing that of all of his predecessors, Linnaeus, not Ray, is usually 

 called the "father" of taxonomy. 



The unique aspect of Linnaeus was his motivation. He wished to 

 name and catalogue all the objects of nature, not as a tool for other 

 studies, not as a means of compiling information, but for the sake of 

 the process itself. He enjoyed taxonomy. His methods of classification, 

 his system of naming and the keys he developed were even more simple 

 to use than those of Ray. Others discovered that they could use his sys- 

 tem and identify organisms themselves. Furthermore, his enthusiasm 

 was infectious. Linnaeus' first classification of nature (minerals, plants 

 and animals) appeared in 1735 and was an immediate success. At the age 

 of 28 Linnaeus had an international reputation, and within a short 

 time he established at the University of Upsala in Sweden a center of 

 taxonomic work to which students came from all over the world. His 

 classification, the Systemn Naturae, was revised and enlarged several 

 times, and published in several countries. It was in its 13th edition when 

 Linnaeus died in 1778, and was carried through several more editions 

 during the next fifty years by his students. 



The system used by Linnaeus was modified from edition to edition. 

 He began by following Ray in the use of the genus followed by the name 

 of the species, the latter being one or more descriptive words epitomizing 

 the species. In successive editions more and more species were named, 

 and in the interest of brevity the specific names became shorter and 

 shorter. By the 10th edition, published in 1758, Linnaeus adopted a 

 uniform system in which the genus and the species were each a single 



