In the 18th century, the Swedish naturalist and physician Carl Linnaeus introduced the scientific system of classifying plants and animals that is used all over the world to this day.
Under this system, each living thing is assigned a name consisting of two Latin word is the name of the genus, and the second, the species. The classification of living things is called taxonomy.
In 1737, Linnaeus published the first edition of his book titled systema naturae or system of nature. Over the years, Linnaeus continued to develop his ideas and add new species so that the book grew in period of about 30years from 12 outsize pages in its first edition, to 2400 pages in its 12th edition.
This was the first serious attempt ever made to document all of our planet’s species. It was a huge effort, and it won Linnaeus acclaim as the ‘Father of Taxonomy’.