Carl Linnaeus ( 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement

as Carl von Linné(Swedish pronunciation:), was a Swedish botanist, physician, and

zoologist who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming
organisms. He is known as the "father of modern taxonomy".[4] Many of his writings
were in Latin, and his name is rendered in Latin as Carolus Linnæus (after 1761
Carolus a Linné).

Linnaeus was born in the countryside of Småland in southern Sweden. He received

most of his higher education at Uppsala University and began giving lectures in botany
there in 1730. He lived abroad between 1735 and 1738, where he studied and also
published the first edition of his Systema Naturae in the Netherlands. He then returned
to Sweden where he became professor of medicine and botany at Uppsala. In the
1740s, he was sent on several journeys through Sweden to find and classify plants and
animals. In the 1750s and 1760s, he continued to collect and classify animals, plants,
and minerals, while publishing several volumes. He was one of the most acclaimed
scientists in Europe at the time of his death.

Philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau sent him the message: "Tell him I know no greater
man on earth."[5] Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote: "With the exception of
Shakespeare and Spinoza, I know no one among the no longer living who has
influenced me more strongly."[5] Swedish author August Strindberg wrote: "Linnaeus
was in reality a poet who happened to become a naturalist."[6] Linnaeus has been
called Princeps botanicorum (Prince of Botanists) and "The Pliny of the North".[7] He
is also considered as one of the founders of modern ecology.[8]

In botany and zoology, the abbreviation L. is used to indicate Linnaeus as the authority
for a species' name.[9] In older publications, the abbreviation "Linn." is found.
Linnaeus's remains comprise the type specimen for the species Homo sapiens following
the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, since the sole specimen that he is
known to have examined was himself.

Carl Linnaeus is famous for his work in Taxonomy, the science of identifying, naming
and classifying organisms (plants, animals, bacteria, fungi, etc.). He was born in 1707,
the eldest of five children, in a place called Råshult, in Sweden. His father, called Nils,
was a minister and keen gardener. He would often take his young son Carl into the
garden with him and teach him about botany (the study of plants). By the age of five,
Carl had his own garden, which gave him a great thirst for learning about plants and
how they work.

Nils taught Carl that every plant had a name. At the time, plant names (which were in
Latin, and still are to this day) were very long and descriptive, and difficult to
remember. Nevertheless, Carl dedicated himself to learning as many as he could. In
fact, at school he was often more interested in memorising plant names than in his
school lessons. Due to his interest in plants and science, Carl was encouraged by his
tutor, Johan Stensson Rothman (1684–1763), to study medicine.

In 1728, after spending a year studying medicine at the University of Lund, Carl
Linnaeus transferred to Uppsala University, in the hope that the course would be
better. He studied the use of plants, minerals and animals in medicine. It was here that
he came to the attention of Olof Celsius (1670–1756) a theologian (professor of
religious study) and naturalist (studying natural history). Celsius, who was uncle to
Anders Celsius (the inventor of the Celsius thermometer), found Linnaeus studying in
the university botanic garden—and was very surprised to find that the young man
knew the names of all the surrounding plants. Linnaeus had very little money and
Celsius offered him a place to live while at university and allowed him to use his library.
During this time, Linnaeus wrote an essay on the classification of plants based on their
sexual parts and one professor, Olof Rudbeck (1660-1740), was so impressed that he
asked Linnaeus to become a lecturer in botany.

Not only is Linnaeus considered the “Father of Taxonomy”, he was also a pioneer in the
study of ecology. He was one of the first to describe relationships between living things
and their environments.

Why is Taxonomy important?

How do we make sense of biodiversity? The answer is classification. By grouping living

things into defined hierarchies and giving them individual names we create order
which allows us more easily to study the seemingly chaotic world of nature. Carl
Linnaeus is most famous for creating a system of naming plants and animals—a
system we still use today. This system is known as the binomial system, whereby each
species of plant and animal is given a genus name followed by a specific name (species),
with both names being in Latin. For example, we are Homo sapiens. Homo is the genus
that includes modern humans and closely-related species like Homo neanderthalensis
(Neanderthals). Linnaeus named over 12,000 species of plants and animals, although
some have had to be renamed because we know more about them now. Linnaeus
published many books using his new system of classification and his two most famous
books, Species plantarum (1st edition, 1753) and Systema naturae (10th edition,
1758), are still used by scientists as the basis for naming plants and animals.

Carolus Linnaeus was instrumental in developing a system for the classification of living
things. It is known as binomial nomenclature. It is still used today.

Each species is assigned a two-name scientific name that is universally understood by

all scientists. It is generally written in Latin. By the 1700's, the names that scientists
used to classify organisms were generally long and very confusing. The system devised
by Linnaeus made taxonomy (the naming of organisms) much simpler.

The genus name is assigned because it represents a group of closely related species. An
example of this is the genus Canis. This represents organisms that are in the canine
group including dogs, jackals and wolves.

The next part of the scientific name is the species name. The definition of a species is a
group of organisms who can interbreed. Canis lupus is the scientific name for gray
wolves.

During Linneaeus' time organisms were categorized into categories from most general
to most specific in the following order: kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus,
species. Based on evidence of the time, classification was mainly done based on
similarities that could be observed. Today, evolutionary relationships, DNA evidence,
etc. help scientists to classify organisms in a more precise way.