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Darwin portrait at the Linnean Society

The Linnean Society of London

Burlington House, Piccadilly

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A living forum for biology
The Linnean Society of London

The Linnean Society encouraging debate, research, publications and meetings about the biological sciences. It also as well as maintains a library of internationally importance.

Library at the Linnean SocietyMost of the members of the Linnean Society are involved in classifying living things. They work in the fields of biological systematics. They are taxonomists.
 
In many fields it is vital to be able to identify living things accurately. Identification is very important in agriculture, fisheries, forestry, geology, medicine, parasitology and veterinary science.
 
Taxonomists draw on a wide range of scientific evidence from such fields as genetics, ecology, anatomy, physiology, biochemistry and palaeontology. These studies are essential to understanding and conserving biodiversity.
 
The society's library is a huge collection of over 40,000 monographs dating from 1483 to the present. These expert studies focus on plant and animal classification, evolutionary biology and the history of natural history.

Submitted by: Andrew Hunt, 06 February 2005

Find out more about the work of the Linnean Society and its historical collections from its web site. Find out too about the Swedish naturalist, Carl Linnaeus, whose botanical and zoological collections and library have been in the Society's keeping since 1829.

See also: Biodiversity

Project sponsors:

City sponsors:
ASE London Region
Nuffiled Curriculum Centre