Linneo

Linneo, the Spanish form of Carl Linnaeus, was a Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist who laid the foundations of modern biological classification. Born in 1707 in Råshult, Småland, Linneo studied medicine and natural history at Lund and Uppsala and later served as a professor of botany at Uppsala University. He published widely on plants and animals and died in 1778.

Linneo is best known for developing the system of binomial nomenclature, which assigns each species a two-part Latin name consisting of the genus and species. His major works include Systema Naturae, first published in 1735, and Species Plantarum (1753). The former established a hierarchical framework for organizing living beings, with ranks such as genus and species, and helped standardize scientific naming across Europe. The latter work laid the groundwork for botanical nomenclature and described thousands of plant species.

Legacy: Linneo's taxonomic framework, known as Linnaean taxonomy, became the standard method for naming and classifying organisms and deeply influenced biology, ecology, and related sciences. Although modern phylogenetics has refined our understanding of evolutionary relationships, the binomial naming system and many organizational concepts introduced by Linneo remain central. The genus Linnaea was named in his honor.