PPT Slide
- In the mid 18th century a Swedish botanist, Carolus Linnaeus, began to improve the way organisms were identified and classified
- In his Systema Naturae, Linnaeus described all of the plants and animals known to Europeans at the time
- Thus, the modern science of taxonomy (the identification and classification of species) was born
- The taxonomic system used by Linnaeus was a binomial system (binomial system of nomenclature); every organism was given a 2 part Latin name: genus and specific epithet
- Genus = A group of very similar organisms related by common descent from a recent ancestor and sharing similar physical traits
- Species = A specific kind of organism in a genus; a group within a genus, whose members share the same set of structural traits and can successfully interbreed with one another