The book
Systema Naturae was one of the major works of the
SwedishSweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe...
botanist, zoologist and physician
Carolus LinnaeusCarl Linnaeus was a Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist, who laid the foundations for the modern scheme of binomial nomenclature...
. Its full title is
Systema naturae per regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis or translated: "System of nature through the three kingdoms of nature, according to classes, orders, genera and species, with [generic] characters, [specific] differences, synonyms, places".
The tenth edition of this book is considered the starting point of zoological nomenclature.
Overview
Linnaeus, or "Carl Von Linné" which is his full swedish name, published the
Systema Naturae in the year 1735, during his stay in the
NetherlandsThe Netherlands is a country in Northwestern Europe, constituting the major portion of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east...
. As customary for the scientific literature of its day, the book was published in
LatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Roman conquest, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe...
. In it, he outlines his ideas for the hierarchical classification of the natural world, dividing it into the
animal kingdomAnimals are a major group of mostly multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia or Metazoa. Their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later on in their life. Most animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously...
(
Regnum animale), the plant kingdom (
Regnum vegetabile) and the "
mineral kingdomA mineral is a naturally occurring solid formed through geological processes that has a characteristic chemical composition, a highly ordered atomic structure, and specific physical properties. A rock, by comparison, is an aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids, and need not have a specific...
" (
Regnum lapideum).
The classification of the plant kingdom in the book was not a natural one, but of convenience: it followed Linnaeus' new sexual system where species with the same number of
stamenThe stamen is the male organ of a flower. Each stamen generally has a stalk called the filament , and, on top of the filament, an anther , and pollen sacs,...
s were treated in the same group. Linnaeus believed that he was classifying
GodGod is a deity in theistic and deistic religions and other belief systems, representing either the sole deity in monotheism, or a principal deity in polytheism....
's creation and was not trying to express evolutionary relationships. The classification of animals was more natural. For instance,
humanHumans are bipedal primates belonging to the species Homo sapiens in Hominidae, the great ape family. They are the only surviving member of the genus Homo. Humans have a highly developed brain, capable of abstract reasoning, language, introspection, and problem solving...
s were for the first time placed together with other
primateA primate is a member of the biological order Primates , the group that contains lemurs, lorisids, galagos, tarsiers, monkeys, and apes, with the last category including great apes. With the exception of humans, who inhabit every continent on Earth, most primates live in tropical or subtropical...
s (as
AnthropomorphaAnthropomorpha is a defunct taxon which contained the manlike, or anthropoid, apes.The order was established by Carl Linnaeus in the first edition of his book Systema Naturae for genera Homo , Simia and Bradypus...
).
In view of the popularity of the work, Linnaeus kept publishing new and ever expanding
editions, growing from eleven pages in the first edition (1735) to three thousand pages in the final and thirteenth edition (1767). Also, as the work progressed he made changes: In the first edition
whaleWhale is the common name for marine mammals of the order Cetacea. The term whale is sometimes used to refer to all cetaceans, but in more common English usage it generally excludes the members of the Delphinoidea superfamily, such as dolphins and porpoises...
s were classified as
fishA fish is any aquatic vertebrate animal that is typically ectothermic , covered with scales, and equipped with two sets of paired fins and several unpaired fins...
es, following the work of Linnaeus' friend and "father of
ichthyologyIchthyology is the branch of zoology devoted to the study of fish. This includes skeletal fish , cartilaginous fish , and jawless fish...
"
Peter ArtediPeter Artedi or Petrus Arctaedius was a Swedish naturalist and is known as the "father of Ichthyology."...
; in the 10th edition, published in 1758,
whaleWhale is the common name for marine mammals of the order Cetacea. The term whale is sometimes used to refer to all cetaceans, but in more common English usage it generally excludes the members of the Delphinoidea superfamily, such as dolphins and porpoises...
s were moved into the
mammalMammals are a class of vertebrate animals whose females are characterized by the possession of mammary glands while both males and females are characterized by sweat glands, hair, three middle ear bones used in hearing, and a neocortex region in the brain.Mammals are divided into three main...
class. In this same edition he introduced two part names (see
binomenIn zoological nomenclature, a binomen, or binominal name, is the name of a species. The term was introduced in 1953, abolishing the previously used "binomial name" ....
) for animal species, something he had done for plant species (see binary name) in the 1753 publication of
Species PlantarumSpecies Plantarum was first published in 1753, as a two-volume work by Carl Linnaeus. Its prime importance is perhaps that it is the primary starting point of plant nomenclature as it exists today. This means that the first names to be considered validly published in botany are those that appear...
.
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