2024/01/01 by Roderic Page, J. Roger Downie · 1 voice
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · #Genetic and phenotypic traits in livestock #Genetic diversity and population structure #Identification and Quantification in Food
paper · pdf · doi:10.37208/tgn28s07
openalex publication_date 2024/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/26
John Graham Kerr (JGK) was interested in the naming, description, diversity and relationships of living organisms.This interest is seen particularly in his enthusiasm for the proper housing and development of the Hunterian collections, including Fabricius's insect "type" specimens which his colleague R.A. Staig catalogued.Taxonomy in zoology involves the description and naming of each kind of animal.Since the pioneering work of Linnaeus, each newly described kind (or species) has been assigned its own Latin binomial, a name of two words: first, the generic, then the specific, printed in italics, as in Rana temporaria, the common frog.The English or common name is how animals are referred to in everyday speech, but they can vary between countries and regions, while the Latin name is universal and allows scientists to be sure of which kind they are dealing with.The specimens used for the first description of any species are known as the "type" specimens and are intended to be carefully curated and catalogued in reputable museum collections.The full Latin name for any species includes the name of the describer: Rana temporaria L. denotes that this species' key features were first described by Linnaeus.Although Linnaeus accepted the prevailing dogma of his time that all creatures had been created by God, he and others could see that creation was not random: many species were similar to other species, but distinctly different from others.Linnaeus was therefore able to construct a hierarchy of similarity and difference that allowed the diversity of living organisms to be ordered.For example, Rana temporaria is similar to some other frogs, such as the pool frog Rana lessonae, but different from another group of frogs with adhesive digital pads, the treefrogs, assigned a different generic name -Hyla.While taxonomy is about naming species of organisms, systematics is about the ordering of them into similarity groups.Since the time of Darwin, systematics has aimed to reveal the evolutionary origins and relationships of groups of organisms.