Binomial Nomenclature: Binary Nomenclature

Binomial nomenclature - binary nomenclature

A scientific system of naming through which each species of living organisms is given a name composed of two parts; the first part of the name identifies the genus to which the species belongs. For example, humans belong to the genus Homo and within this genus to the species Homo sapiens. Both parts of the scientific name are usually Greek or Latin or sometimes both languages. For example, the scientific name of the narrow-leaf firethorn is Pyracantha angustifolia, where the genus is Greek for "fire thorn" and the species is Latin for "having narrow leaves.". Binomial nomenclature may be informally called Latin name.

Historic information: The introduction of the Binomial nomenclature system is credited

Historic information: The introduction of the Binomial nomenclature system is credited to the Swedish scientist, Carl Linnaeus, (1707 – 1778) who formalized this system. However, Gaspard Bauhin (1560-1624), who was a Swiss botanist described thousands of plants and classified them in a manner that were later adopted by Linnaeus. Common names versus scientific names: Historically and before the introduction of the current nomenclature system by Linnaeus, the plants usually had many long descriptive Latin names, making learning and memorizing them very difficult. The current universal nomenclature system enables scientists around the world to share information about given organism accurately without ambiguity. Unlike scientific names, common names are not unique and so it is quite often to find several names for the same species whether at national levels or even at localized regions as well as in different languages. As a result, common name usage can be misleading and may lead to confusion about what organism is being referred to. Rules of writing: In modern usage of nomenclature, the first letter of the first part of the name, the genus, is always capitalized in writing, while that of the second part is in lower case, even if named after a proper noun such as the name of a person or place. Both parts of scientific names are italicized or underlined when occur in normal text. When writing about several species from the same genera, the first name is written in full, while in subsequent name(s), the first letter of genus name may be abbreviated using the first letter as a capital letter with a period after it. (Oreochromis niloticus, O. aureus, O. mossambicus). On the other hand, if the actual species can’t be identified, the abbreviation sp. (or spp. for plural) can be used after the genus name, Oreochromis spp. In general, most genera are made up of many species. However, some genera contain only one