Carl Alexander Clerck (1709 – 22 July 1765) was a Swedish

entomologist Entomology (from Ancient Greek ἔντομον (''éntomon''), meaning "insect", and -logy from λόγος (''lógos''), meaning "study") is the branch of zoology that focuses on insects. Those who study entomology are known as entomologists. In ...

and

arachnologist Arachnology is the scientific study of arachnids, which comprise spiders and related invertebrates such as scorpions, pseudoscorpions, harvestmen, ticks, and mites. Those who study spiders and other arachnids are arachnologists. More narrowly ...

. Clerck came from a family in the petty

nobility Nobility is a social class found in many societies that have an aristocracy. It is normally appointed by and ranked immediately below royalty. Nobility has often been an estate of the realm with many exclusive functions and characteristics. T ...

and entered the

University of Uppsala Uppsala University (UU) () is a public research university in Uppsala, Sweden. Founded in 1477, it is the oldest university in Sweden and the Nordic countries still in operation. Initially founded in the 15th century, the university rose to s ...

in 1726. Little is known of his studies; although a contemporary of

Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...

, it is unknown whether he had any contact with him during his time in Uppsala. His limited means forced him to leave university early and enter into government service, later ending up working in the administration of the City of

Stockholm Stockholm (; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, most populous city of Sweden, as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately ...

His interest in natural history appears to have come at a more mature age, influenced by a lecture of Linnaeus he attended in Stockholm in 1739. In the following years he collected and categorized many

spider Spiders (order (biology), order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight limbs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude spider silk, silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and ran ...

s, published together with more general observations on the morphology and behaviour of spiders, in his ''

Svenska Spindlar The book ' or ' ( Swedish and Latin, respectively, for "Swedish spiders") is one of the major works of the Swedish arachnologist and entomologist Carl Alexander Clerck and was first published in Stockholm in the year 1757. It was the first compr ...

'' ("Swedish spiders", 1757, also known by its Latin subtitle, ''Aranei Suecici''). He also started the publication of ''Icones insectorum rariorum'', a series of detailed but uncommented plates illustrating numerous species of

butterflies Butterflies are winged insects from the lepidopteran superfamily Papilionoidea, characterized by large, often brightly coloured wings that often fold together when at rest, and a conspicuous, fluttering flight. The oldest butterfly fossi ...

, left unfinished after the third fascicle (1766) because of Clerck's death. Clerck1757-title-page

Because of the exceptionally thorough treatment of the spider species, the scientific names proposed by Clerck in ''

'' (which were adopted by Carl Linnaeus in his ''Systema Naturae'' in 1758 with only minor modifications) had traditionally been recognized by arachnologists as binomial and available, later this was officially recognized in the

International Code of Zoological Nomenclature The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) is a widely accepted Convention (norm), convention in zoology that rules the formal scientific name, scientific naming of organisms treated as animals. It is also informally known as the I ...

.ICZN Code
Art. 3.1 This means that in case of doubt the spelling of a spider name as from Clerck's 1757 work has priority over that proposed by Linnaeus in 1758 (an example is ''Araneus'' instead of ''Aranea''), and that Clerck's spiders were the first animals in modern zoology to have obtained an available scientific name in the Linnean system. The name of the first species to have obtained an available name in the binomial system was '' Araneus angulatus''. He eventually became a friend and correspondent of Linnaeus, who appreciated his work greatly, and through his sponsorship was elected a member of the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala in 1756 and of the

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences () is one of the Swedish Royal Academies, royal academies of Sweden. Founded on 2 June 1739, it is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization that takes special responsibility for promoting nat ...

in 1764. Clerck's collection is in the

Swedish Museum of Natural History The Swedish Museum of Natural History (), in Stockholm, is one of two major museums of natural history in Sweden, the other one being located in Gothenburg. The museum was founded in 1819 by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, but goes bac ...

External links

Svenska spindlar Online at GDZ

References

*Alb. Tullgren, "Clerck, Carl Alexander", ''Svenskt biografiskt lexikon'', vol. 8 (1929). *''

Nordisk familjebok (, 'Nordic Family Book') is a Swedish language, Swedish encyclopedia that was published in print from between 1876 and 1993, and that is now fully available in digital form via Project Runeberg at Linköping University. The public domain edit ...

'', 2nd ed., vol. 5 (1906), col
432 f
*F. Pleijel & G. W. Rouse, ''Ceci n´est pas une pipe - names clades and phylogenetic nomenclature'', J. Zool. Syst. Evol. Research, 41 (2003), 162-174. {{DEFAULTSORT:Clerck, Carl Swedish entomologists Swedish arachnologists 18th-century Swedish zoologists 1709 births 1765 deaths Swedish nobility Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences