Question

Systema naturae was written by
A. Lamarck
B. Cuvier
C. Aristotle
D. Linnaeus

Answer 1

Hint: The book Systema Naturae is based around the formal naming system of species. Each name is composed of two parts both of which are derived from the Latin grammatical forms. This system of naming a species is called binomial nomenclature or binary nomenclature or binomial nomenclature. And the species name can be termed as a binomial name or scientific name.

Complete answer: Carl Linnaeus was the Swedish zoologist, botanist, and physician and also was the author of the famous book Systema Naturae originally written in Latin. He introduced the Linnaean taxonomy, which is now known as the binomial nomenclature. This system was believed to have been partially instigated by Gaspard Bauhin and Johann Bauhin also known as the Bauhin brothers about 200 years before Linnaeus. The first edition of the book Systema Naturae was published in the year 1735. The tenth edition of his book published in 1758 was considered to be the most important and was given the full title “Systema Naturae per regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis” which when translated to English meant System of nature through the three kingdoms of nature, according to classes, orders, genera, and species, with characters, differences, synonyms, places. Carl Linnaeus established three kingdoms, which include Regnum Animale, Regnum Vegetabile, and Regnum lapideum which translates to Animal kingdom, Vegetable or Plant kingdom, and Mineral kingdom respectively. The classification is recognized even to this day and includes five levels, namely Kingdom, class, order, genus, and species. A further addition was made to this classification as some organisms might belong to more than one classification or exhibited features of other groups as well. The modified classification is as such. Kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species. The animal kingdom consists of six classes that were introduced in the tenth edition of the book Systema Naturae and are still recognizable to this day. It includes Mammalia, Aves, Amphibia, Pisces, Insecta, and Vermes. Thousands of plant species that were known to Carl Linnaeus at the time were mentioned in the book. Species Plantarum contained descriptions of about 5,940 plants in the first edition of the book. In the tenth edition of his book the Systema Naturae, Linnaeus classified the Mineral kingdom as such, Classis-1 was Petrae which included rocks, Classis-2 was Minerae which included minerals and ores and the final class Classis-3 was Fossilia which included fossils and aggregates.
Therefore, the answer is option D, i.e., Linnaeus

Note: The Historian of botany William T. Stearn was believed to have said that Linnaeus believed that there was no possible way that the number of plant species in the whole world would be more than 10,000 and in his entire career had named about 7,700 flowering plant species. In his book, he mentioned approximately 10,000 species in total out of which 4,236 were animal species and about 6,000 were plant species.