Classification

Life Science: Chapter 17Biology: Chapter

Carolus Linneaus

Carolus Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known as Carl von Linné or Carl Linnaeus. Swedish botanist, zoologist, and taxonomist. Established conventions for naming living organisms still in general scientific use today—in particular, he popularized binomial nomenclature, which had first been developed by the Bauhin brothers (Gaspard and Johann Bauhin) more than a century before. He was the first to use binomial names consistently. As a young man he was a creationist, but he later developed an evolutionary theory of his own.

It was in the 1735 edition of the Systema Naturae that he made the memorable decision to group apes and human beings in the same category, something no other naturalist had dared to do. This classification was important in prompting later writers to propose that humans had actually evolved from apes.

Scientific Names

• Taxonomy – the science of naming and classifying organisms.

• Binomial Nomenclature – a system that gives each species a two-part name using Latin words.

• Current classification system includes: Domain, Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species

Cladistics

• Cladistics is classification base don common ancestry.

• Phylogeny is an evolutionary history for a group of species, sort of like a family tree.

• A cladogram is an evolutionary tree that proposes how species may be related to each other through common ancestors.

Molecular Clocks

• Are models that use mutations rates to measure evolutionary time. – The idea is that the more time that has passed

since two species diverged from a common ancestor, the more mutations will build up in the genome.

Tree of Life