The Man Who Named Nature 1707The year Carl Linnaeus was born · The Man Who Named Nature Carl...

1
IMPRESS YOUR FRIENDS! Carl Linnaeus would look at a species and see what was different about it. It might be a certain colour, size, texture or be from a certain place. He would use this information in the BINOMIAL name. How about this ladybird? In America, this is called a ladybug; in other countries it’s a lady beetle. So how do we know it’s the same thing? Its BINOMIAL name tells us: Coccinella septempunctata GENUS: Coccinella (co-chi-nella) means BRIGHT RED SPECIES: septempunctata (sept-em-punk-tata) means SEVEN POINTS CAN YOU SEE WHY IT WAS NAMED THIS WAY? SEVEN POINTS What is CLASSIFICATION? Have you ever sorted your toys, books or clothes into different groups? Perhaps you have grouped things together by colour, shape or size – this is like classification (taxonomy). CLASSIFICATION is the study of putting all living things into groups. Why are NAMES important? If we didn’t know the names of all the animals, plants and fungi, we wouldn’t know when something was new, or if something had become extinct – we wouldn’t be able to measure life on the planet. What did LINNAEUS do? Carl Linnaeus created a system called BINOMIAL naming (bye-no- me-al). Binomial means ‘two words’ – every plant and animal that he knew about was given a GENUS name and a SPECIES name, in Latin. Linnaeus’ system has made it easier for scientists all over the world to communicate about life on Earth. www.linnean.org The Linnean Society of London Burlington House, Piccadilly London W1J 0BF e: [email protected] Charity Reference No. 220509 Coccinella septempunctata BRIGHT RED Images: Linnaeus/Nautilus © The Linnean Society of London; Earth from NASA Public Domain (nasaimages.org); Sorted colours © Jenn Huls 2013, licensed from Shutterstock.com; Ladybird © irin-k 2013, licensed from Shutterstock.com *Species information taken from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP – unep.org) and Science (no. 25 – sciencemag.org) The Man Who Named Nature Carl Linnaeus ( Lin-ay-us ) was born in 1707, over 300 years ago, in Sweden. As a boy, he was very interested in the natural world, especially BOTANY , the study of plants. His father Nils taught him that every plant had a name. By the time he was five, Carl had his own small garden and could name all of the plants he had grown. When he was older, Carl studied medicine, but he was still interested in nature. In Carl’s day, the plants and animals had long scientific names in Latin. It was hard to keep track of everything because they were difficult to remember. Carl developed a way to name things with only two categories: GENUS and SPECIES C a r l L i n n a e u s i s s o m e t i m e s k n o w n a s t h e F a t h e r o f T a x o n o m y Plant and animal specimens in Linnaeus’ collections 40,000 The year Carl Linnaeus was born 1707 Books in his library 1,600 The year Linnaeus named us Homo sapiens (ho-mo sah-pe-ens), which means ‘wise man’, in his book SYSTEMA NATURAE 1758 Estimated species on planet Earth 8.7* million The age of Linnaeus when he died 71

Transcript of The Man Who Named Nature 1707The year Carl Linnaeus was born · The Man Who Named Nature Carl...

Page 1: The Man Who Named Nature 1707The year Carl Linnaeus was born · The Man Who Named Nature Carl Linnaeus (Lin-ay-us) was born in 1707, over 300 years ago, in Sweden. As a boy, he was

Carl Linnaeus

IMPRESS YOUR FRIENDS!Carl Linnaeus would look at a species and see what was different about it. It might be a certain colour, size, texture or be from a certain place. He would use this information in the BINOMIAL name.

How about this ladybird? In America, this is called a ladybug; in other countries it’s a lady beetle. So how do we know it’s the same thing? Its BINOMIAL name tells us: Coccinella septempunctata

GENUS: Coccinella (co-chi-nella) means BRIGHT RED

SPECIES: septempunctata (sept-em-punk-tata) means SEVEN POINTS

CAN YOU SEE WHY IT WAS NAMED THIS WAY?

SEVEN POINTS

What is CLASSIFICATION?Have you ever sorted your toys, books or clothes into different groups? Perhaps you have grouped things together by colour, shape or size – this is like classification (taxonomy).

CLASSIFICATION is the study of putting all living things into groups.

Why are NAMES important?If we didn’t know the names of all the animals, plants and fungi, we wouldn’t know when something was new, or if something had become extinct – we wouldn’t be able to measure life on the planet.

What did LINNAEUS do?Carl Linnaeus created a system called BINOMIAL naming (bye-no-me-al). Binomial means ‘two words’ – every plant and animal that he knew about was given a GENUS name and a SPECIES name, in Latin. Linnaeus’ system has made it easier for scientists all over the world to communicate about life on Earth.

www.linnean.org

The Linnean Society of London Burlington House, Piccadilly

London W1J 0BF

e: [email protected] Reference No. 220509

Coccinella septempunctataBRIGHT RED

Images: Linnaeus/Nautilus © The Linnean Society of London; Earth from NASA Public Domain (nasaimages.org); Sorted colours © Jenn Huls 2013, licensed from Shutterstock.com; Ladybird © irin-k 2013, licensed from Shutterstock.com

*Spe

cies

info

rmat

ion

take

n fr

om t

he U

nite

d N

atio

ns E

nvir

onm

ent

Pro

gram

me

(UN

EP

– u

nep.

org)

and

Sci

ence

(no

. 25

– sc

ienc

emag

.org

)

The Man Who Named NatureCarl Linnaeus (Lin-ay-us) was born in 1707, over 300 years ago, in Sweden. As a boy, he was very interested in the natural world, especially BOTANY, the study of plants. His father Nils taught him that every plant had a name. By the time he was five, Carl had his own small garden and could name all of the plants he had grown.

When he was older, Carl studied medicine, but he was still interested in nature. In Carl’s day, the plants and animals had long scientific names in Latin. It was hard to keep track of everything because they were difficult to remember. Carl developed a way to name things

with only two categories:

GENUS and SPECIES

C arl Lin

na

eus is sometimes known as the ‘Father of Ta

xono

my’

CLASSIFICATION by NUMBERS!

Plant and animal specimens in Linnaeus’ collections

40,000

The year Carl Linnaeus was born1707

Books in his library1,600

About 1.5* million species have a

BINOMIAL NAME. Scientists are

working on the rest!

The year Linnaeus named us Homo sapiens (ho-mo sah-pe-ens), which means ‘wise man’, in his book SYSTEMA NATURAE

1758

Estimated species on planet Earth

8.7* million

The age of Linnaeus when he died71