History of classification

Linnaeus and the 18th century

The reptiles were from the outset of classification grouped with the amphibians. Linnaeus, working from species-poor Sweden, where the common adder and grass snake are often found hunting in water, included all reptiles and amphibians in class "III – Amphibia" in his Systema Naturæ.^[2] The terms "reptile" and "amphibian" were largely interchangeable, "reptile" (from Latin repere, "to creep") being preferred by the French.^[3] Josephus Nicolaus Laurenti was the first to formally use the term "Reptilia" for an expanded selection of reptiles and amphibians basically similar to that of Linnaeus.^[4] Today, it is still common to treat the two groups under the same heading as herptiles.                                 

[edit] "Antediluvian monsters"

An "antediluvian monster", a Mosasaurus discovered in a Maastricht limestone quarry, 1770 (contemporary engraving)

Not until the beginning of the 19th century did it become clear that reptiles and amphibians are in fact quite different animals, and Pierre André Latreille erected the class Batracia (1825) for the latter, dividing the tetrapods into the four familiar classes of reptiles, amphibians, birds and mammals.^[5]

The British anatomist Thomas Henry Huxley made Latreille's definition popular, and together with Richard Owen expanded Reptilia to include the various fossil "antediluvian monsters", including dinosaurs and the mammal-like (synapsid) Dicynodon he helped describe. This was not the only possible classification scheme: In the Hunterian lectures delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons in 1863, Huxley grouped the vertebrates into mammals, sauroids, and ichthyoids (the latter containing the fishes and amphibians). He subsequently proposed the names of Sauropsida and Ichthyopsida for the two.^[6]

Born	23 May 1707(1707-05-23)[note 1] Råshult, Stenbrohult parish (now within Älmhult Municipality), Sweden
Died	10 January 1778(1778-01-10) (aged 70) Hammarby (estate), Danmark parish (outside Uppsala), Sweden
Residence	Sweden
Nationality	Swedish
Fields	Botany Biology Zoology
Alma mater	Lund University Uppsala University University of Harderwijk
Known for	Taxonomy Ecology Botany
Author abbreviation (botany)	L.
Signature

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