A type specimen is a preserved specimen designated as a permanent reference for a new species, new genus or some other taxon. The type is the first specimen bearing the new scientific name, and the one true example of the species.

The concept of type specimen is central to Linnean taxonomy. Since a species is defined by a physical description, that description necessarily requires looking at a physical object (either a preserved specimen or a detailed illustration). This object becomes the "type," the fixed standard by which all subsequent specimens are identified as "typical" of the species.

The methodology had relaxed somewhat in the first part of the twentieth century, with some scientists substituting instead a syntype, a listing of several examples of a species, none of which had priority over the other. But Stearn was writing in light of a recent crackdown. The keepers of the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature had announced a return to Linnean orthodoxy: All new species would henceforth again be defined by a single instance only, called either a holotype (if chosen by the first describer of the species) or a lectotype (if chosen at a later date). Linnaeus's specimens became holotypes as soon as he used them in compiling Systema Naturae... Its specimens were the definitive examples- the embodiments, so to speak- of their respective species.

Yet Linnaeus had neglected to collect the type specimen of one important species. He had never supplied a holotype for Homo sapiens, and for that matter had defined the species only with the terse phrase nosce te ipsum, Latin for "know yourself." Stearn proposed a novel means of correcting this omission. Since "the specimen most carefully studied and recorded by the author is to be accepted as the type," he wrote, the appropriate lectotype was obvious. Linnaeus had presumably examined himself for decades, even if only by glancing in the mirror while shaving.

"Clearly," Stearn concluded, "Linnaeus himself. .. must stand as the type of his Homo sapiens!"

We find that the variability and amplitude of movements in the central body regions (head, neck and trunk) and speed of the right knee movements are especially important in signalling dance quality. A ‘good’ dancer thus displays larger and more variable movements in relation to bending and twisting movements of their head/neck and torso, and faster bending and twisting movements of their right knee.

The first and most famous Pfeilstorch was a white stork found in 1822 near the German village of Klütz, in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. It was carrying a 75-centimetre (30 in) spear from central Africa in its neck. The specimen was stuffed and can be seen today in the zoological collection of the University of Rostock.

The song was commission by Dr. Lekelia Jenkins especially for the Human Dimensions of the Ocean Symposium at the University of Washington in 2012. This is an example of how art can be blended with science to express scientific concepts in novel ways.