Above: Swedish ambassador Her Excellency Karin Ehnbom-Palmquist during her visit to the Western Australian Museum - Perth’s tribute to one of her

most famous countryman – Carolus Linneaus who

created the world’s first scientific classification

system for life on earth.

WA Museum collection development executive director Diana Jones scientific institutions around the world were commemorating the life and times of one of the world’s most prominent naturalists and teachers. “Linnaeus’ two-worded Latin-based system classifying flora, fauna and minerals is still used today,” Ms Jones said.

“Scientists use Linnaeus's binomial nomenclature, but species are classified according to their evolutionary relationships, which are determined by genetics, biochemistry and morphology.“His classification system pre-dated Darwin and the theory of evolution by many years – On the Origin of Species was published in 1859.”

According to Swedish history, Linnaeus was born in 1707 in the small, rural town of Småland to a Lutheran family. His father was a minister with a passion for plants and he introduced his son to botany.

 In his early scientific years Linnaeus found there was no consensus on the formal naming of living creatures and the recording of species became chaotic as more and more of the world was explored.

As a result, Linnaeus began his two-worded Latin-based system, which became known as the Linnaean Binomial System.  Linnaeus taught at Uppsala University in the Swedish county of Uppsala where his original botanical garden still exists.