Hierarchical Ordering Systems of biological classification did not make much significant progress for about 2, years after Aristotle's contribution, until a Swedish Professor of Botany devised a new organizing principle, and applied it to a taxonomy of plants, animals and later minerals and diseases.
Carl Linne Born on May 23, in Rashult Sweden, quickly found the major interest in his life in the gardens and fields around him. From a very young age he was called the "little botanist" a title he took with him all the way through school, university and medical training. At Uppsala University he met and was influenced by the botanist Olof Celsius, who helped him get the position of lecturer in botany at Uppsala University, and two years later encouraged him to go on collecting explorations in Lapland.
He published the results of his travels as the Flora Lapponica, and later in published his famous Systema Naturae , which brought him a world wide reputation. Carolus Linnaeus he loved Latin and used it for everything, including changing his name to the Latin version , is considered to be the founder of modern taxonomy. His work is the start of modern botanical and zoological classification. Like Aristotle before him, Linnaeus used logic in devising his classification scheme. But he introduced a new idea; a hierarchy of nested groups within groups, a system sometimes called hierarchical ordering.
The Linnaean system uses two Latin name categories, genus and species , to designate each type of organism. A genus is a higher level category that includes one or more species under it. Such a dual level designation is referred to as a binomial nomenclature or binomen literally "two names" in Latin.
For example, Linnaeus described modern humans in his system with the binomen Homo sapiens , or "man who is wise". Homo is our genus and sapiens is our species. Linnaeus also created higher, more inclusive classification categories. For instance, he placed all monkeys and apes along with humans into the order Primates. His use of the word Primates from the Latin primus meaning "first" reflects the human centered world view of Western science during the 18th century.
It implied that humans were "created" first. However, it also indicated that people are animals. Charles Darwin While the form of the Linnaean classification system remains substantially the same, the reasoning behind it has undergone considerable change.
For Linnaeus and his contemporaries, taxonomy served to rationally demonstrate the unchanging order inherent in Biblical c reation and was an end in itself.
From this perspective, spending a life dedicated to precisely describing and naming organisms was a religious act because it was revealing the great complexity of life created by God. This static view of nature was overturned in science by the middle of the 19th century by a small number of radical naturalists, most notably Charles Darwin. Phylum follows Kingdoms and has many different organisms, including three examples below:. Class is an additional sub-division, which for example, results in the Chordata phylum being divided into:.
Order follows class and as an example, mammals can be further sub-divide into a variety of different groups such as:. Orders are broken down into families. Here are a few examples of which carnivores can be divided into:. Genus, the Felidae family can be further sub-divided into four genus examples:. Species is the final classification stage, and the genus Panthera can be divided into:.
As an example, the complete breakdown of the classification of lions :. Classification is an important step in understanding the present diversity and past evolutionary history of life on Earth. All modern classification systems have their roots in the Linnaean classification system. It was developed by Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus in the s.
He tried to classify all living things that were known at his time. He grouped together organisms that shared obvious physical traits, such as number of legs or shape of leaves. The Linnaean system of classification consists of a hierarchy of groupings, called taxa singular, taxon. Taxa range from the kingdom to the species see Figure below.
The kingdom is the largest and most inclusive grouping. It consists of organisms that share just a few basic similarities. Examples are the plant and animal kingdoms. The species is the smallest and most exclusive grouping. It consists of organisms that are similar enough to produce fertile offspring together. Closely related species are grouped together in a genus. This chart shows the taxa of the Linnaean classification system. Each taxon is a subdivision of the taxon below it in the chart.
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