Linnaeus, Carolus

1995/08/02 Azkune Mendia, Iñaki - Elhuyar Fundazioa | Kaltzada, Pili - Elhuyar Zientziaren Komunikazioa

• Biografiak

(1707-1778)

This Swedish botanist, born in Rashult on May 23, 1707, was called Carl von Linné, but the Latinized title is better known among scientists.

His father was a Protestant pastor and had a small botanical garden. The young Linnaeus spent many hours there and that is why they called a small botanist.

He studied medicine at the University of Uppsala and there he took care of gardeners and pistilos of plants. Based on the reproductive apparatus, he thought that plants could be classified into a new and better system.

In 1730 he was appointed professor of botany at the University of Uppsala and in 1732 he went to Lapland under the Swedish Academy of Sciences. He toured 7,400 kilometers north of Scandinavia, where he discovered a hundred new plant species. He also studied the animals of the area and for their importance for sex (male) and (female) used for the first time the symbols.

He also travelled to Western Europe and England and in 1735 published the book Systema Naturae. In this book the living beings appear systematically classified and thanks to it is considered today the father of the modern taxonomy Linnaeus.

He used a two-word nomenclature with two names for each plant or animal: Quercus robur or Salamandra luschani, for example. The first name indicates the genus of the plant or animal and the second indicates the species to which it belongs. Linnaeus's book had seven large sheets when it was first published, but in the tenth edition it extended to 2,500.

In 1737 Linnaeus published two other books: Flora Lapponica and Genera Plantorun. When in 1753 he published the book Species Plantorum, he became famous all over the world. This book remains the basis for the systematic classification of plants with flowers and ferns.

In 1755 the king of Spain offered him an offer to go to work, but Linnaeus responded negatively and continued to teach Natural History at the University of Sweden. He was a very good teacher and sent his students all over the world to look for new ways of life. He died in 1778 in Uppsala on January 0. Then sir J. R. R. British millionaire Smith took them to London buying their manuscripts and their collections of herbs, insects and shells and today they are at the headquarters of the Linnaean Society. They say that when the king of Sweden discovered that the things of Linnaeus went to England by boat, he sent a frigate and around it a dramatic story has been invented. But it is not true.

Linnaeus's passion for classification was almost a disease. In addition to elaborating lists of species and their genera, he classified genera in classes and classes in order. (Later Cuvie would also classify the orders in films).

Despite being religious Linnaeus, the man dared to qualify as Homo Sapiens in the same genus of the orangutan (Homo Troglodytes). He also got into the genus of whale mammals and similar animals.

Classification as a tree of large groups to small groups and species has contributed significantly to the study of evolution from the original forms of living beings to the current complex forms.

Linnaeus, however, did not accept at all the idea of evolution. In his opinion, at birth no new species appeared and then did not disappear.

Cuvier, Jussieu and Candolle developed the classification system of Linnaeus and, on that path, it was essential that a Darwin appear and the theory of evolution be made public.