Born in 1707, Carl Linnaeus would rise to such a level of greatness that the philosopher Jean-Jaques Rousseau once said “Tell him I know no greater man on earth,” and was heralded by many of his contemporaries and apostles as Princeps botanicorum - the Prince of Botany. This praise was not without merit: he’s the reason we name almost everything in biology the way that we do. Prior to Linnaeus, the science dealing with naming, organizing, and classifying organisms, called taxonomy, was a disorganized and confusingly complex mess. The word taxonomy is derived from an irregularly-conjugated Ancient Greek word taxis which means arrangement, and the Ancient Greek suffix -nomia, derived from the Ancient Greek word nemein, meaning to manage.
Linnaeus had a passion for botany, and while he went to school to study medicine, his long-term goals always included learning about plants. At 25, he won a grant to travel to Lapland and document the local flora and fauna. While there, he began to classify the flowers he found with what we now know as the bionomial classification system - from the Latin bi, meaning two, and nominus meaning name. Prior to this system, species were given long, many-worded descriptive names, and there were several competing outlines for classifying plants and animals into groups, none of which were particularly accurate or helpful to a scientist not intimate with the specific branch of biology the outline was designed for.
The binomial classification system uses two identifiers for a species - the “generic name” (also known as its genus), and the “specific” name (also known as the species). Linnaeus introduced this system in his book Systema naturae, first published in 1735. Even though the first edition was basic and just twelve pages long, it introduced to the scientific community a system that was simple, understandable, easy to remember, and easy to add new species to. Throughout his life, Linnaeus and his apostles continued work on Systema naturae, and by its 10th Edition in 1758, it classified over 4400 species of animals, and 7700 species of plants.Portrait of Carl Linneaus by Hendrik Hollander, 1853, in the public domain.
Image from Haeckel’s Tree of Life in the public domain.
Guest post for Kids Need Science.
This CBF report researches the link between smallmouth bass mortality and disease and the need to reduce water pollution in Chesapeake Bay tributaries.
New satellite data analysis shows deep divide between haves, have nots and tree canopy in D.C.
This article is problematic for so many reasons.
USGS scientists detected a chemical soup of herbicides, pharmaceuticals, and hormones at fish nesting sites in the Potomac River watershed where endocrine disruption in smallmouth bass was also observed.
Farrowing on pasture: If you put the hut in too early, she’ll shred the hut to make her nest. Instead, we put in a round bale or two for them to shred for nest building. If you put it in after she builds her nest, but before she farrows, she might feel threatened and move her nest.
Momma pig (sow) makes a nest, and delivers her piglets (farrowing). The next day, or as soon as momma is back on her feet, locate the nest and approach slowly with a hut.
Drop hut nearby and drag onto the nest. Other pigs may get curious at this point.
Show momma pig that you mean no harm, and this is her lovely new home. The piglets tend to move in first, while momma checks it out and tells the other pigs to stay away.
Usually works like a charm! Rarely, we have an agressive pig that tries to take over a farrowing hut or a negligent momma more interested in socializing than in piglets, so we’ll create a nursing pen with two-strand electric fencing, and provide the sow with her own feed, water, and hay. As long as there is a big pasture with plenty of windbreaks, food, water, and bedding material, they’re all as happy as a pig in… well, that expression really isn’t fair.
Past climate change varied remarkably between regions. This is demonstrated in a new study coordinated by the international Past Global Changes (PAGES) project, which reconstructed temperature over the past 1000 to 2000 years.
