106 



THE RISE OF ANIMAL LIFE 



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Fig. 6-1. Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778) is considered the 

 father of taxonomy because he initiated a system of 

 classifying plants and animals that is still in use 

 today. 



they possessed hair and warm blood. The 

 system served a useful purpose as long as 

 the number of animals was not great, but 

 with increasing knowledge it became cum- 

 bersome and almost useless. Over a million 

 animals are known today and to classify 

 them in such a way would be a formidable 

 and fruitless task. It became obvious that 

 other factors must be selected as a founda- 

 tion upon which a satisfactory system of 

 classification could be built. Let us consider 

 briefly the man who was responsible for 

 our present system. 



Although John Ray (1627-1705), the 

 English naturalist, has been considered the 

 first true systematist, Carolus Linnaeus 

 (1707-1778) is generally recognized as the 

 father of taxonomy because he gave us the 

 system of classification that is in current 

 use today (Fig. 6-1). He was a Swedish 

 physician who developed an interest in 

 natural history that continued from child- 

 hood throughout his lifetime. In his early 

 youth he recognized the need for a better 

 system of classification and soon set down 



the basic principles on which he later built 

 a satisfactory method of cataloging plants 

 and animals. Linnaeus had the insight to 

 select important fundamental characters as 

 bases for his classification. This was a for- 

 tunate thought because not only did it give 

 us a system which was workable and sound 

 for an infinite number of additions, but it 

 was also compatible with the doctrine of 

 evolution, a theory Linnaeus himself did 

 not subscribe to. He developed a branch- 

 ing type of system, just as evolution is, so 

 the two go hand in hand, not because of 

 the foresight of the author but by sheer 

 coincidence. 



Linnaeus used such fundamental struc- 

 tures as the skeleton, scales, hair, feathers, 

 and so forth, in classifying the larger ani- 

 mals; for the soft-bodied invertebrate types 

 he used characters like the foot of the mol- 

 lusk, the body segments and exoskeleton of 

 the arthropods. All animals and plants in 

 this system of classification were given two 

 names, a generic (a noun) and a specific 

 ( an adjective ) name. This is now known as 

 the binomial system of nomenclature. The 

 generic name is comparable to our own 

 family name, whereas the specific name is 

 like our given name. Linnaeus decided that 

 these names should be written in a lan- 

 guage that would cause the least amount of 

 international jealousy and therefore se- 

 lected Latin. Animals that are most alike 

 were placed in one species, such as sapiens, 

 the specific name for all men alive today — 

 there have been other species of men but 

 they are all extinct. Likewise, man also 

 belongs to the genus Homo; there have 

 been other Homos but they, too, have been 

 extinct many thousands of years. Under the 

 Linnaean classification, therefore, man is 

 known as Homo sapiens. 



Linnaeus grouped all the various genera 

 (plural of genus) into larger groups which 

 he called orders; while these animals re- 

 sembled one another in certain respects, 

 they differed much more than did the vari- 

 ous species in the separate genera. He fur- 



