Carolus Linnaeus Facts
Carolus Linnaeus Facts
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| Interesting Carolus Linnaeus Facts: |
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| Linnaeus was born in a rural region of Sweden, only the second generation to have a permanent last name. |
| Until Carolus was born, the family had always used the patrilineal naming system common in many Scandinavian countries. |
| His father, Nils, attended university and therefore had to have a permanent surname instead of a changeable name based on parentage; he named himself after a tree that commonly grew in the region. |
| Carolus was given the middle name Nilsson after his father, in keeping with the traditional naming system. |
| Carolus Linnaeus attended school at Uppsala University where he became a botany lecturer at the age of twenty-seven. |
| He traveled abroad extensively for his studies, and eventually began an international expedition to study and classify wide varieties of plants, animals, and minerals. |
| He published many volumes of works on his studies, and became one of the most well-known scientists in Europe. |
| He developed the concept of the type specimen, which is a sample of an organism that the identifier actually studied; therefore, Linnaeus serves as the type specimen for the human race, listed in taxonomy as Homo sapiens, as he studied himself for that classification. |
| Linnaeus traveled extensively and uncovered hundreds of species that had before had no scientific designation. He published many works on these specimens, mostly flora. |
| While traveling in Lapland, he saw a bone from a horse lying on the ground, and realized that if he had a system of classification for animals, he could have identified the bone. |
| He spent several years serving as the curator and head of a number of different botanical gardens, expanding his knowledge base and classifying even more specimens. |
| Linnaeus eventually returned to Sweden and found a position as a physician for the Admiralty. |
| This position provided a steady income, and Linnaeus was able to marry his fiancée, Sara Elisabeth Moraea. |
| While there, he became one of the founders of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and became its first Praeses when his name was drawn. |
| He took a position as a professor of medicine at Uppsala, but swapped with another position to become the head of the university's botanical garden. |
| He was rewarded for his contributions to science with ennoblement by the Swedish king, taking the name Carl von Linne'. |
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