Linnaeus

Carl Linnaeus, also spelled Linnaeus and Latinized as Carolus Linnaeus, was a Swedish naturalist and physician (1707–1778) who laid the foundations for modern taxonomy. He developed a universal system for naming and classifying living organisms and promoted a standardized biological language that could be used across Europe.

Linnaeus’s most enduring contributions include binomial nomenclature, the two-kingdom classification, and the use of reproductive features to organize plants in his sexual system. He introduced the practice of giving every species a two-part Latin name (genus and species) and placed organisms into a hierarchical framework of kingdom, class, order, genus, and species. He proposed a two-kingdom system, Animalia and Vegetabilia (often referred to as Plantae), and he popularized a plant classification based on their reproductive organs. His major works include Systema Naturae (first published in 1735; the 10th edition in 1758 helped standardize zoological nomenclature) and Species Plantarum (1753), which established the starting point for modern plant names.

Linnaeus’s taxonomy greatly improved communication among scientists and provided a durable structure for biological organization. Although later phylogenetic methods revised many aspects of his system, the Linnaean framework remains foundational in biology, influencing nomenclature, classification, and the study of biodiversity. He spent much of his career at Uppsala University, where he built a renowned natural history collection and educated generations of naturalists.