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John Hogg (1800–1869) was a British naturalist who wrote about
amphibians Amphibians are four-limbed and ectothermic vertebrates of the class Amphibia. All living amphibians belong to the group Lissamphibia. They inhabit a wide variety of habitats, with most species living within terrestrial, fossorial, arbore ...
, birds, plants, reptiles, and
protist A protist () is any eukaryotic organism (that is, an organism whose cells contain a cell nucleus) that is not an animal, plant, or fungus. While it is likely that protists share a common ancestor (the last eukaryotic common ancestor), the exclu ...
s. In 1839, he became a member of the Royal Society. John Hogg is credited with the creation of a fourth kingdom, accompanying Carl Linnaeus's Lapides, Plantae and Animalia, to classify Life, namely ''Protoctista''.


Background

In 1735, the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus formalized living things into two supergroups, in his monumental '' Systema Naturae''. All organisms were placed into the Kingdoms Plantae and Animalia. Linnaeus added a third kingdom of the natural world in 1766; ''Lapides'' (
rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...
s). These were deemed to be similar to plants in that they were, neither living nor sentient, i.e. not having senses. They were further characterised as solid bodied.


Fourth kingdom

In 1860, Hogg created a fourth kingdom, the ''Regnum Primigenum'' or ''Protoctista''. His rationale was simply that a kingdom of 'first beings' was necessary, as these entities were believed to have existed prior to plants and animals. Hogg attempted to justify his arguments for a fourth kingdom with ''
Spongilla Overview ''Spongilla'' is a genus of freshwater sponges with over 200 different species. Spongilla was first publicly recognized in 1696 by Leonard Plukenet and can be found in lakes, ponds and slow streams.''Spongilla'' have a leuconoid body f ...
'', a freshwater green sponge, that was an animal known to exude oxygen in the light. However, the photosynthesis was later shown to be a result of symbiotic '
algae Algae (; singular alga ) is an informal term for a large and diverse group of photosynthesis, photosynthetic eukaryotic organisms. It is a polyphyletic grouping that includes species from multiple distinct clades. Included organisms range from u ...
'. Such an attempt to apply non-reductionist thought to classification systems during a period of biological debate made Hogg a protagonist within the field of nineteenth century biology along with Ernst Haeckel and
Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended fr ...
.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hogg, John 1800 births 1869 deaths Fellows of the Royal Society