3 
TRANSLATION AND ANNOTATION OF THE AMPHIBIAN 
AND REPTILE SECTION OF SYSTEMA NATURAE X 
by 
Kenneth Kitchell and Harold A. Dundee 
INTRODUCTION 
The tenth edition of Systema Naturae is one of the most significant and fundamental works in 
the science of biology -- it marked the beginning of orderliness to the chaotic and inconsistent 
methods of naming animals. Karl Linn6, a Swedish naturalist, who latinized his name to Carolus 
Linnaeus, is the author of the Systema Naturae . He was enobled in 1761 as Carl von Linn6 , thus 
his name may appear as Linnaeus , Linn6, or von Linn6. In the Systema he used the system of 
binomial nomenclature, i.e., application of at least two names, the generic name and the specific 
epithet, for the scientific name of an animal. Binomial nomenclature was not actually a creation of 
Linnaeus's. The concept of genus and specific epithet had been used for hundreds of years 
before his time, but the use of such names in a uniform manner and under the same cover for all 
groups of animals emphasized the advantages of such a system, and biologists soon embraced 
the idea and the binomial system was considered to be the ideal form for nomenclature. Linnaeus 
had actually had the same effect on botanists via publication of his book Species Plantarum in 
1753. The fundamental concept of nomenclature is based on priority for the oldest name; names 
applied by Linnaeus are often the inventions of earlier taxonomists, but the acceptance of 
Linnaeus' s 10th as the starting point forces us to give credit for many of the earlier names to him. 
By currently accepted rules, no names proposed prior to 1758 are granted priority. 
Linnaeus did not propose any rules for animal nomenclature but did provide some rules for 
botanists in his Critica Botanica of 1737. Zoological taxonomists did not have any guiding 
principles for applications of priority until 1842 when the British Association for the Advancement 
of Science adopted a set of rulings known as the "Stricklandian Code”. In 1889 the First 
International Zoological Congress discussed a set of rules proposed by Professor Raphael 
Blanchard and adopted them at the second Congress in 1892. But a need was seen for 
considering all rules and by 1905 the Sixth Congress adopted the Regies internationales de la 
Nomenclature zoologique . The Regies were later replaced by the International Code of 
Zoological Nomenclature, which is the set of rules determined by the International Congress of 
Zoology and which is published by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. In 
its articles the Code clearly states that Linnaeus' s 10th edition is the starting point for zoological 
nomenclature and is arbitrarily assigned a publication date of January I, 1758 and that any other 
work published in 1758 is to be treated as having been published after that edition. Many of the 
names used by Linnaeus still apply, albeit in many cases in different genera. 
As we look at the expanded title of the Systema Naturae, we see that it refers to Classes, 
Orders, Genera, and Species. The concept of family, a hierarchy higher than genus but lower 
than Order, came after Linnaeus's work. Not surprisingly, then, later investigations have led to 
some Linnaean names being converted to different hierarchical levels. The taxonomists of 
Linnaeus's time were concerned with only a few thousand species, but today we are concerned 
with possibly two million or more species. We have endeavored to simply translate Linnaeus’ s 
10th; any further interpretations fall beyond this province and belong to the specialist systematists. 
