ABSTRACT
Carl Linnaeus published the first edition of his classification of living things, the Systema Naturae, in 1735. Shortly thereafter, while having lunch with a colleague at the University of Leiden, he was in the middle of explaining the nature of his classification system when the colleague stopped him in mid-explanation. A beetle had crawled onto the table, and the colleague wanted to know where this particular type of beetle fit into the classification system. Linnaeus examined the bug carefully and frowned. Then he squished the bug with a thumb, flicked it from the table, and asked “What beetle?”
