Editing Taxonomy (biology) (section)

==== Ancient times ====

{{further|Aristotle's biology#Classification}}

[[File:Huang-Quan-Xie-sheng-zhen-qin-tu.jpg|thumb|upright=1.7|''Description of rare animals'' (写生珍禽图), by [[Song dynasty]] painter [[Huang Quan (painter)|Huang Quan]] (903–965)]]

Organisms were first classified by [[Aristotle]] ([[Greece]], 384–322 BC) during his stay on the island of [[Lesbos]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Mayr |first=Ernst |author-link=Ernst Mayr |date=1982 |title=The Growth of Biological Thought |publisher=Belknap Press of Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts}}</ref><ref name="Palaeos">{{Cite web |url= http://palaeos.com/taxonomy/history.html |title= History of Taxonomy |website=Palaeos |url-status=dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20170331022648/http://palaeos.com/taxonomy/history.html |archive-date=31 March 2017}}</ref><ref name="Britannica – Taxonomy" /> He classified beings by their parts, or in modern terms ''attributes'', such as having live birth, having four legs, laying eggs, having blood, or being warm-bodied.<ref name="Roanoke">{{Cite web |url= http://www.cbs.dtu.dk/courses/genomics_course/roanoke/bio101ch20.htm |title=Biology 101, Ch 20 |date=23 March 1998 |website=cbs.dtu.dk |url-status=live |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20170628023508/http://www.cbs.dtu.dk/courses/genomics_course/roanoke/bio101ch20.htm |archive-date=28 June 2017}}</ref> He divided all living things into two groups: [[plant]]s and [[animal]]s.<ref name="Palaeos" /> 

Some of his groups of animals, such as ''Anhaima'' (animals without blood, translated as [[invertebrate]]s) and ''Enhaima'' (animals with blood, roughly the [[vertebrate]]s), as well as groups like the [[shark]]s and [[cetacean]]s, are commonly used.<ref>{{Cite book |title=The Lagoon: How Aristotle Invented Science |title-link=Aristotle's Lagoon |last=Leroi |first=Armand Marie |date=2014 |publisher=Bloomsbury |isbn=9781408836224 |pages=384–395 |author-link=Armand Marie Leroi}}</ref><ref name="von Lieven & Humar 2008">{{cite journal |last1=von Lieven |first1=Alexander Fürst |last2=Humar |first2=Marcel |title=A Cladistic Analysis of Aristotle's Animal Groups in the "Historia animalium" |journal=History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences |date=2008 |volume=30 |issue=2 |pages=227–262 |jstor=23334371 |pmid=19203017 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23334371 |issn=0391-9714 |access-date=19 September 2023 |archive-date=27 November 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221127081940/https://www.jstor.org/stable/23334371 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Laurin & Humar 2022">{{cite journal |last1=Laurin |first1=Michel |last2=Humar |first2=Marcel |title=Phylogenetic signal in characters from Aristotle's History of Animals |journal=Comptes Rendus Palevol |date=2022 |volume=21 |issue=1 |pages=1–16 |doi=10.5852/cr-palevol2022v21a1 |language=fr |doi-access=free }}</ref>

His student [[Theophrastus]] (Greece, 370–285 BC) carried on this tradition, mentioning some 500 plants and their uses in his ''[[Historia Plantarum (Theophrastus)|Historia Plantarum]]''. Several plant [[Genus|genera]] can be traced back to Theophrastus, such as ''[[Cornus (genus)|Cornus]]'', ''[[Crocus]]'', and ''[[Narcissus (plant)|Narcissus]]''.<ref name="Palaeos" />