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Title page of the 1758 edition of Linnaeus's Systema Naturæ.^[1]

The book Systema Naturae (sometimes written Systema Naturæ with the ligature æ) was one of the major works of the Swedish botanist, zoologist and physician Carolus Linnaeus. The first edition was published in 1735. The full title of the 10th edition, which was the most important one, was Systema naturæ per regna tria naturæ, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis or translated: "System of nature through the three kingdoms of nature, according to classes, orders, genera and species, with characters, differences, synonyms, places".

The tenth edition of this book is considered the starting point of zoological nomenclature.^[2] In 1766–1768 Linnaeus published the much enhanced 12th edition, the last under his authorship. Another again enhanced work in the same style and entitled "Systema Naturae" was published by Johann Friedrich Gmelin between 1788 and 1793. Since at least the early 1900s zoologists commonly recognized this as the last edition belonging to this series.^[3][4] It was also officially regarded by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature in Opinion 296 (26 Oct 1954) as the 13th edition of Systema Naturae.^[5]

Overview[link]

Linnaeus (later known as "Carl von Linné", after his ennoblement in 1761)^[6] published the first edition of Systema Naturae in the year 1735, during his stay in the Netherlands. As customary for the scientific literature of its day, the book was published in Latin. In it, he outlines his ideas for the hierarchical classification of the natural world, dividing it into the animal kingdom (Regnum animale), the plant kingdom (Regnum vegetabile) and the "mineral kingdom" (Regnum lapideum).

At the time of Linnaeus only about 10,000 species of organisms were recognised by science, about 6,000 species of plants and 4,236 species of animals. Even in 1753 he believed that the number of species of plants in the whole world would hardly reach 10,000; in his whole career he named about 7,700 species of flowering plants.^[7]

The classification of the plant kingdom in the book was not one meant to reflect the actual order of nature^{[clarification needed]} but to organize it in a fashion convenient for humans^{[citation needed]}: it followed Linnaeus' new sexual system where species with the same number of stamens were treated in the same group. Linnaeus believed that he was classifying God's creation and was not trying to express any deeper relationships. He is frequently quoted to have said God created, Linnaeus organized. The classification of animals was more natural. For instance, humans were for the first time placed together with other primates, as Anthropomorpha.

In view of the popularity of the work, Linnaeus kept publishing new and ever-expanding editions, growing from eleven very large pages in the first edition (1735) to 2,400 pages in the twelfth edition (1766–1768).^[8] Also, as the work progressed he made changes: in the first edition whales were classified as fishes, following the work of Linnaeus' friend and "father of ichthyology" Peter Artedi; in the 10th edition, published in 1758, whales were moved into the mammal class. In this same edition he introduced two part names (see binomen) for animal species, something he had done for plant species (see binary name) in the 1753 publication of Species Plantarum. The system eventually developed into modern Linnaean taxonomy, a hierarchically organized biological classification.

Taxonomy[link]

In his Imperium Naturæ, Linnaeus established three kingdoms, namely Regnum Animale, Regnum Vegetabile and Regnum Lapideum. This approach, the Animal, Vegetable and Mineral Kingdoms, survives until today in the popular mind, notably in the form of parlour games: "Is it animal, vegetable or mineral?". The classification was based on 5 levels: Kingdom, class, order, genus and species. While species and genus was seen as God-given (or "natural"), the three higher levels were seen by Linnaeus as constructs. The concept behind the set ranks being applied to all groups was to make a system that was easy to remember and navigate in, a task in which he must be said to have succeeded.

The work of Linnaeus had a huge impact on science; it was indispensable as a foundation for biological nomenclature, now regulated by the Nomenclature Codes. Two of his works, the first edition of the Species Plantarum (1753) for plants and the tenth edition of the Systema Naturæ (1758) are accepted among the starting points of nomenclature; most of his names for species and genera were published at very early dates and thus take priority over those of others (in zoology there is one exception, which is a monograph on Swedish spiders Svenska Spindlar,^[9] published by Carl Clerck in 1757, the names established therein take priority over the Linnean names).^[10] However, the impact he had on science was not because of the value of his taxonomy. His taxonomy was not particularly notable, but Linnaeus' talent for attracting skillful young students and sending them abroad to collect made his works far more influential than that of his contemporaries.^[11] At the close of the 18th century, his system had effectively become the standard system for biological classification.

The Animal Kingdom[link]

The 1735 classification of animals

Only in the Animal Kingdom is the higher taxonomy of Linnaeus still more or less recognizable and some of these names are still in use, but usually not quite for the same groups as used by Linnaeus. He divided the Animal Kingdom into six classes; in the tenth edition (1758), these were:

1. Mammalia comprised the mammals. In the first edition, whales and the West Indian Manatee were classified among the fishes.
2. Aves comprised the birds. Linnaeus was the first to remove bats from the birds and classify them under mammals.
3. Amphibia comprised amphibians, reptiles, and assorted fishes that are not of Osteichthyes.
4. Pisces comprised the bony fishes. These included the spiny-finned fishes (Perciformes) as a separate order.
5. Insecta comprised all arthropods. Crustaceans, arachnids & myriapods were included as the order "Aptera".
6. Vermes comprised the remaining invertebrates, roughly divided into "worms", molluscs and hard-shelled organisms like echinoderms.

The Plant Kingdom[link]

His orders and classes of plants, according to his Systema Sexuale, were never intended to represent natural groups (as opposed to his ordines naturales in his Philosophia Botanica) but only for use in identification. They were used in that sense well into the nineteenth century.

Key to the Sexual System from the 10th (1758) edition of Systema Naturæ

The Linnaean classes for plants, in the Sexual System, were:

The Mineral Kingdoms[link]

His taxonomy of minerals has dropped long since from use. In the tenth edition, 1758, of the Systema Naturæ, the Linnaean classes were:

• Classis 1. Petræ (rocks)
• Classis 2. Mineræ (minerals and ores)
• Classis 3. Fossilia (fossils and aggregates)^[12]

Editions[link]

The dates of publication for Gmelin's edition were the following:^[13]

• Part 1: pp. [1–12], 1–500 (25 July 1788)
• Part 2: pp. 501–1032 (20 April 1789)
• Part 3: pp. 1033–1516 (20 November 1789)
• Part 4: pp. 1517–2224 (21 May 1790)
• Part 5: pp. 2225–3020 (6 December 1790)
• Part 6: pp. 3021–3910 (14 May 1791)
• Part 7: pp. 3911–4120 (2 July 1792)

See also[link]

• 10th edition of Systema Naturae
• 12th edition of Systema Naturae
• Animalia Paradoxa

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Systema Naturae

• Linné online