At 09:41 PM 3/9/2002 -0500, you wrote:
>Q'man asks;-
>         How did Linne come up with his binomial system? Were there any
>less well known precursers? Who did "L." consult with? Surely someone
>had to say: that's a helova good idea.
>     Your beloved Question Man

As I understand it, the binominal system was more or less accidental. Carl
had used Latin phrases for the first 9 editions (like everybody else), but
in the 10th abbreviated them to two words, which became our genus and
species. And contrary to popular opinion, binominal nomenclature did not
originate with Carl. Clerk's 1757 Aranei suecici (on Swedish spiders)
predates Linnaeus. Other, earlier writers sometimes used two words,
sometimes whole paragraphs in the same work, to describe organisms. But
Clerk and Linnaeus were the first to use two words consistently. Accidental
or not, this was a major change in concepts. We went from short passages
that tried to describe a species to a two-word label that simply stood for
something without necessarily telling us anything about it in a descriptive
way.






G. Thomas Watters, PhD
Curator of Molluscs
Museum of Biological Diversity
Department of Evolution, Ecology & Organismal Biology
The Ohio State University
1315 Kinnear Road
Columbus, OH 43212
v: 614-292-6170
f: 614-292-7774

Visit the Molluscs Division at:
http://www.biosci.ohio-state.edu/~molluscs/OSUM2