In 1758, in the 10th edition of Systema Naturae, the Swedish scientist and taxonomist Carl Linnaeus described the class "Vermes" as: [1]
Animals of slow motion, soft substance, able to increase their bulk and restore parts which have been destroyed, extremely tenacious of life, and the inhabitants of moist places. Many of them are without a distinct head, and most of them without feet. They are principally distinguished by their tentacles (or feelers). By the Ancients they were not improperly called imperfect animals, as being destitute of ears, nose, head, eyes and legs; and are therefore totally distinct from Insects.
Linnaean Characteristics [2]
The class Vermes, as Linnaeus conceived it, was a rather diverse and mismatched grouping of animals; basically it served as a wastebasket taxon for any invertebrate species that was not an arthropod. With the advent of the scientific understanding of evolution, it became clear that many of the animals in these groups were not in fact closely related, and so the class Vermes was dropped for several (at least 30) phyla.
Ignaz Edler von Born, also known as Ignatius von Born, was a mineralogist and metallurgist. He was a prominent freemason, being head of Vienna's lodge and an influential anti-clerical writer. He was the leading scientist in the Holy Roman Empire during the 1770s in the Age of Enlightenment.
The 10th edition of Systema Naturae is a book written by Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus and published in two volumes in 1758 and 1759, which marks the starting point of zoological nomenclature. In it, Linnaeus introduced binomial nomenclature for animals, something he had already done for plants in his 1753 publication of Species Plantarum.
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