Linnaeus, Carolus

Linnaeus, Carolus, the Latinized name of the great Swedish naturalist Carl von Linné (1707–78), who transformed the study of natural history by devising the binomial system of nomenclature. This provides for every species to have a name consisting of two Latinized words, the first indicating the genus to which the species belongs and the second being the specific or species name. The entry on ling provides two examples, and there are hundreds of others elsewhere in the Companion.