Carl Linnaeus

The contemporary system of naming creatures was defined by the Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician Carl Linnaeus. The "father of modern taxonomy" is what he is referred to as. His name is spelled Carolus Linnaeus in Latin for many of his publications and Carolus a Linné following his 1761 ennoblement.

At Uppsala University, where he spent most of his further schooling, he started offering botany classes in 1730. Between 1735 to 1738, he lived abroad, studying and publishing his Systema Naturae's first edition in the Netherlands. Afterward, he returned to Sweden and started teaching medicine and botany at Uppsala. He undertook several expeditions in Sweden in the 1740s to locate and catalog flora and animals. He continued to gather and categorize animals, plants, and minerals throughout the 1750s and 1760s while also writing many books. At the time of his passing, he was one of Europe's most well-known scientists.

Linnaeus is regarded as the inventor of taxonomy, which groups all species of living things into evolutionary hierarchies or family trees. However, the meticulous Swede was more concerned in identifying things than in organizing them, a focus that Charles Darwin introduced in the next century. Many of Linnaeus' other theories have been replaced as our understanding of evolution and, more recently, genetic studies have altered how we classify and arrange living things. But his naming scheme-so flexible and easy-remains.

Born - Died: 1707-1778
Field: Botanical, zoological, taxonomical
Important contributions: The father of taxonomy