The features that Aristotle used to classify animals were:
· red blood or no red blood
· hard or soft body
· shell or no shell.
The presence of red blood, hard or soft bodies and shells are all body structures, or structural features, of animals.
Why is this worth noticing?
This idea of Aristotle's, to use structural features in his classification system, is the basis of modern biological classification. His idea was forgotten for many centuries but it was rediscovered in the 12th century AD by a German scholar named Saint Albertus Magnus. Aristotle's idea has contributed to the development of science. |
