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Carolus Linnaeus (later, Carl von Linné) ( May 23, 1707 - January 10, 1778) was a Swedish scientist who laid the foundations for the modern scheme of taxonomy. He is also considered one of the fathers of modern ecology (see History of ecology).1 Biography
Carl Linnaeus, who wrote under the Latinized form of his name, Carolus Linnaeus, was born at Stenbrohult , in the province of Smalandia in southern Sweden. As a boy Linnaeus was to be groomed for life as a churchman, as his father and maternal grandfather were, but he showed little enthusiasm for the profession. His interest in Botany, though, impressed a physician from his town and he was sent to study at Lund University, transferring to Uppsala University after one year.
During this time Linnaeus became convinced that in the stamens and pistils of flowers lay the basis for the classification of plants, and he wrote a short work on the subject that earned him the position of adjunct professor. In 1732 the Academy of Sciences at Uppsala financed his expedition to explore LaplandiaLaponia or Lappland was a historical Province or landskap in the extreme north of Sweden. In 1809 it was split into a Swedish western part and a Finnish eastern part. It borders to Jemtia, Angermannia and Westrobothnia in Sweden and to Ostrobothnia in Fin, then virtually unknown. The result of this was the Flora Laponica published in 1737.
Thereafter Linnaeus moved to the continent. While in the NetherlandsDutch redirects here. For other uses, see Dutch (disambiguation). The Netherlands ( Dutch: Nederland is the European part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, a constitutional monarchy. It is located in northwestern Europe and borders the North Sea, Belgium he met Jan Frederik GronoviusJan Frederik Gronovius (also seen as "Johann Frederik" and "Johannes Fredericus") ( 1690- 1762) was a Dutch botanist notable as a patron of Linnaeus. John Clayton, a plant collector in Virginia sent him many specimens in the 1730s, as well as a manuscript and showed him a draft of his work on taxonomy, the Systema Naturae . In it, the unwieldy descriptions mostly used at the time —physalis amno ramosissime ramis angulosis glabris foliis dentoserratis—were replaced by the concise and now familiar genus-species names—Physalis angulata. Higher taxa were constructed and arranged in a simple and orderly manner. Although the system now known as binomial nomenclatureIn biology, binomial nomenclature is a standard convention used for naming species. As the word 'binomial' suggests, the scientific name of a species is formed by the combination of two terms: the genus name and the species epithet or descriptor. The firs was developed by the Bauhin brothersGaspard Bauhin ( January 17, 1560 December 5, 1624) and Jean Bauhin ( 1541- 1613) were Swiss- French botanists. Gaspard Bauhin introduced binomial nomenclature into taxonomy, which was much later taken up by Linnaeus. Bauhin's work, Pinax theatri botanici almost 200 years earlier, Linnaeus may be said to have popularized it within the scientific community.
Linnaeus named taxa in ways that personally struck him as common-sensical; for example, human beings are Homo sapiens (see sapienceSapience is the ability of an organism or entity to act with intelligence. Sapience is synonymous with some usages of the term sentient, though the two are not exactly equal: sentience is the ability to sense or feel, while sapience is the ability to thin), but he also described a second human species, Homo troglodytes ("cave-dwelling man", by which he meant the chimpanzeePan troglodytes Pan paniscus Chimpanzees also called chimps are the common name for two species in the genus Pan . The best known chimpanzee is Pan troglodytes the Common Chimpanzee, living in West and Central Africa. Its cousin, the Bonobo or Pygmy Chimp currently most often placed in a different genus as Pan troglodytes).
The group " mammalia" are named for their mammary glands because one of the defining characteristics of mammals is that they nurse their young. (Of all the features distinguishing the mammals from other animals, Linnaeus may have picked this one because of his views on the importance of natural motherhood. He campaigned against the practice of wet-nursing, declaring that even aristocratic women should be proud to nurse their own children).
300px Autograph of Carl v. Linné (Carolus Linnaeus)
In 1739 Linnaeus married Sara Morea, daughter of a physician. He ascended to the chair of medicine at Uppsala two years later, soon exchanging it for the chair of Botany. He continued to work on his classifications, extending them to the kingdom of animals and the kingdom of minerals. The last strikes us as somewhat odd, but the theory of evolution was still a long time away—and indeed, the Lutheran Linnaeus would have been horrified by it. Linnaeus was only attempting a convenient way of categorizing the elements of the natural world. He was knighted in 1755, taking the name, Carl von Linné.
