Scientific names of plants and animals

What is nomenclature?

Nomenclature is defined as the system of naming organisms with a scientific name. Animals and plants are called by different names across the globe. The concept of nomenclature was developed to avoid confusion and to ensure the entire world follows the same name to address the particular name. Scientific names are different from local names.

What is binomial nomenclature?

The concept of Binomial nomenclature was developed by a famous scientist named Carolus Linnaeus. Carolus Linnaeus was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, physician, and taxonomist. Biologists across the globe follow the internationally accepted codes of principles while assigning a scientific name to the newly discovered or known organisms.

Let’s understand what binomial nomenclature is and what rules are to be followed while writing the scientific name of an organism.

The scientific name of every organism is composed of two names. The first name represents the genus to which it belongs, whereas the second name represents the species. Because the organism is named using two names, the process is called Binomial Nomenclature. Binomial nomenclature is nothing but naming the organism using its genus and species.

For example, let’s take the example of modern human beings. As per the Linnaeus taxonomical classification, Humans belong to the genus “Homo” and species “sapiens”. So, the scientific name of humans would be Homo sapiens.

Universal Rules for binomial nomenclature

Now that we have understood that binomial nomenclature is the system of naming an organism using two names, let’s understand the universal rules for writing the scientific name of any given organism. There are 5 rules one must follow to write the scientific name correctly.

1. Binomial names are generally taken from the Latin language, irrespective of their origin.
2. Each organism is given only one name and is unique. No two organisms can have the same scientific name.
3. The scientific name should be printed in Italics. Furthermore, handwritten scientific names should be underlined separately to indicate their Latin origin.
4. The first word denotes the genus and should start with a capital letter. And, the second word denotes the specific epithet and should start with a small letter.
5. The name of the scientist who discovered the organism is written after the species in abbreviated form.

Let’s consider the example of a mango. Mango belongs to the genus “Mangifera” and species “Indica”. The correct way to write the scientific name of a Mango is “Mangifera indica Linn”. In this name, Linn represents the name of the scientist who discovered mango i.e. Carolus Linnaeus.

Scientific names of animals

Scientific names of plants

Significance of scientific names

The concept of binomial nomenclature has been greatly significant in assigning scientific names to all living entities.

• Before the discovery of binomial nomenclature, very long and inconvenient names were used to name an organism. With the advent of binomial nomenclature, remembering the scientific names of organisms has become easy.
• Binomial nomenclature helps avoid confusion which is seen with local names.
• All scientific names are universally accepted, standardized, and recognised.