Scientific Names Made Easier
Originally Published: 1994. Agapornis World (Journal of the African Love Bird Society). 20(5):11-13
A modified version (primarily modifying the scientific name examples) was printed in Summer 2003 edition of Wild Times, the staff and volunteer newsletter of Lindsay Wildlife Museum.
Scientific names are an internationally recognized standard way of referring to biological organisms. They facilitate communication among scientists who speak different languages, or even among those speaking different dialects of a language. Without their use and standardization, no two people could really be sure what organism they were talking about without both having seen it.
For instance, do you know what a "catamount" is? How about a "painter"? Do you know the animal as "panther"? Maybe you can be sure what I’m referring too if I call it a "mountain lion," or would you rather I call it a "puma"? If I used the name Felis concolor, you may not have known exactly what I was talking about, but you could easily have gone and looked it up. Look in any reference you have on mammals. I bet "catamount" (an Appalachian local name) isn’t in there, but Felis concolor is.
Who Makes Up These Things Anyway?
As you can see, the use of scientific names is very important in biology. If you don’t know what organism you are talking about, you can’t tell anyone about what you saw. The rules governing the use of these names in zoology (the study of animals) are written by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN), and generally agreed to by all zoologists. Plants have a separately controlled set of rules, but for most purposes, they are treated the same as scientific names of animals.
The name for each organism is decided upon by the person who originally describes the organism in a publication. The description has to conform to certain minimal standards as to content, and the name should not be profane, and should be in the proper form, but beyond that, not much is needed to name an organism.
Though the full ICZN rules are somewhat complicated, with the current edition running several hundred pages, the vast majority do not effect the average person dealing with animals. Those parts that do effect, or may be of interest, to many animal keepers are easy to understand, and rather few.
What are the Rules?
First, scientific names must be in Latin or must be "latinized." The latter means that they can be non-Latin words, but must conform to the grammar of the Latin language. Many people call scientific names "Latin names," which is incorrect, since the words may be in any language, and in fact do not have to mean anything. For instance, there is a moth whose scientific name is "Ah ha." Obviously those are not Latin words, but were put together by the scientist who named the moth, partly as a joke, but the name is a proper one.
Scientific names take the form of a binomial - they have two words in them. The first of the pair of words in a scientific name is the name of the genus (plural genera) of the animal, and is intended to show a close relationship among those sharing the generic name. For instance, the generic name for our Lovebirds is Agapornis. All Lovebirds, you will notice, have the same genus name, which shows that they are considered to be closely related. This name happens to translate fairly easily into English, agape meaning "love" and ornis meaning "bird."
In a different genus is Ara macao, the Scarlet Macaw. Though it is another parrot, the difference in generic names means that the macaw is not considered to be as closely related to birds in the genus Agapornis as Agapornis cana and Agapornis fischeri are to each other.
The second of the pair of words in a scientific name is the specific epithet (species name) of the animal. This identifies the specific kind of animal you are dealing with. For instance, if the scientific name is Agapornis fischeri, then you know you are dealing with a Lovebird (Agapornis) and the specific epithet tells you it’s Fischer’s Lovebird.
The specific epithet does not necessarily have anything to do with the common (English) name of the animal. Agapornis fischeri, happens to be Fischer’s Lovebird, but Agapornis cana is the Madagascan Lovebird, not "Cana’s Lovebird."
The Use of Scientific Names in Print
If you saw the name "fischeri" you might assume you are still talking about Fischer’s Lovebird. But unless you use some indicator of the genus you are talking about, you could be talking about any number of organisms. Without the generic name, you can’t be sure what type of animal you’re talking about. You must always use some indicator of the genus along with the specific epithet.
The normal means of doing this within a single article or paper is by using the full name (Agapornis fischeri) the first time you use the name, then using the initial of the genus (A. fischeri) throughout the rest of the paper. If you talk about other species of Agapornis in the same article, you should use their full name (e.g. Agapornis cana) the first time you use it, but then you can use the initial of the genus (A. cana). This doesn’t work, of course, if you are talking about more than one organism with the same generic initial (e. g. Agapornis cana and Astronotus occelatus - which is a fish!).
The major exception to the use of initials is when you start a sentence with the scientific name. Then you must always use the full name (back to Agapornis fischeri or Agapornis cana).
Notice throughout this article how I have written the names. The generic name or initial is always capitalized, the specific epithet never is. This is the proper form for a scientific name. Additionally, the name should always either be underlined or written in italics (not both). But if the text surrounding the name is underlined, then the name should not be underlined (remember we were talking about A. cana?), and if the surrounding text is in italics, the name should be in regular print (we were also talking about A. fischeri).
This sets the scientific name apart, so you know where it stops and starts. Though not so obviously important in English, this is particularly important in some other languages that are closer to Latin, where you might confuse a scientific name with a typographical error if they weren’t set apart somehow.
I hope this clears up some of the confusion and frustration surrounding scientific names and their use. They aren’t all that difficult to learn, and they help make sure you’re talking about the right animal.