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In biology, taxonomy (from Ancient Greek τάξις 'arrangement' and -νομία 'method') is the scientific study of naming, defining (circumscribing) and classifying groups of biological organisms based on shared characteristics.
Linnaean taxonomy can mean either of two related concepts: The particular form of biological classification (taxonomy) set up by Carl Linnaeus , as set forth in his Systema Naturae (1735) and subsequent works.
[3] [4] The taxonomy criteria of medieval texts is different from what is used today. Plants with similar external appearance were usually grouped under the same species name, though in modern taxonomy they are considered different. [5] Abū l-Khayr's botanical work [6] is the most complete Andalusi botanical text known to modern scholars.
The classification of living things into animals and plants is an ancient one. Aristotle (384–322 BC) classified animal species in his History of Animals , while his pupil Theophrastus ( c. 371 – c. 287 BC ) wrote a parallel work, the Historia Plantarum , on plants.
Carl Linnaeus [a] (23 May 1707 [note 1] – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné, [3] [b] was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming organisms.
For example, a basic biology taxonomy would have concepts such as mammal, which is a subset of animal, and dogs and cats, which are subsets of mammal. This kind of taxonomy is called an is-a model because the specific objects are considered as instances of a concept. For example, Fido is-an instance of the concept dog and Fluffy is-a cat. [23]
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: Mammalia comprised the mammals.
The first writings that show human curiosity about plants themselves, rather than the uses that could be made of them, appear in ancient Greece and ancient India. In Ancient Greece, the teachings of Aristotle 's student Theophrastus at the Lyceum in ancient Athens in about 350 BC are considered the starting point for Western botany.