Early naturalists placed all vultures under one single biological group. Carl Linnaeus had assigned both Old World vultures and New World vultures in a Vulture genus, even including the Harpy eagle. Soon anatomists split Old and New World vultures, with New World vultures being placed in a new suborder, Cathartae, later renamed Cathartidae as per the Rules of Nomenclature (from Greek: carthartes, meaning “purifier”) by French ornithologist Frédéric de Lafresnaye. The suborder was later recognised as a family, rather than a suborder.