History of Classification

Aristotle(384-322), the Greek philosopher, known as father of zoology made the first recorded attempt to classify the animals in his book Historia Animalium. Aristotle made two group: Anaima (animals with no red blood, invertebrates) and Enaima (animals with red blood, vertebrates). Enaima was further divided in to Ovipara and vivipara. John Ray, the naturalist was first to introduce and define the term Animal species. John Ray also developed the key for identification of animals. Linnaeus also recognized that different species could be grouped in to broader categories based on shared characteristics. Any grouping of organisms that shares a particular set of characteristics forms an assemblage called taxo. The term systematic, taxonomy and biologial classification are often used as synonyms. The term systematic was coined by Carolus Linnaeus in 1735. Taxonomy is the study of the principles and procedures of classification. The term taxonomy was proposed by the French botanist August Candolle for the theory of plant classification.