Fixed by the Swede who called himself the 'prince of botanists' and ranked life into kingdom, class, order, genus and species
Carl Linnaeus, later ennobled as Carl von Linné, who has his own GoDeep entry.
Science · Biology
Binomial nomenclature
1753 (plants); 1758 (animals)
Biology — taxonomy and systematics
Binomial nomenclature is the convention by which every species gets a two-part Latin name: a capitalised genus followed by a lower-case specific epithet, both italicised — Homo sapiens, Panthera leo, Escherichia coli. Carl Linnaeus made it universal, and the formal starting points are his Species Plantarum of 1753 for plants and the tenth edition of Systema Naturae, 1758, for animals. It replaced the unwieldy descriptive Latin phrases used before, and gives every organism one unambiguous name in every language.
How to spot them
- ▸A two-word Latin name: capitalised genus, lower-case specific epithet, both italicised
- ▸Fixed by Linnaeus in Species Plantarum (1753) and Systema Naturae, 10th edition (1758)
- ▸Homo sapiens, Tyrannosaurus rex, Escherichia coli
- ▸Governed by the ICZN for animals and the ICN for plants, algae and fungi
- ▸The name of the describing author and the year may follow, as in 'Homo sapiens Linnaeus, 1758'
Key facts
Its starting point for plants is Species Plantarum of 1753; for animals, the tenth edition of Systema Naturae in 1758 (1753 / 1758)
Names published before those dates have no standing.
Replaced the long descriptive Latin phrases, or polynomials, that had served as names before
The tomato had been Solanum caule inermi herbaceo, foliis pinnatis incisis; it became Solanum lycopersicum.
The rule that the second word is never capitalised and the first always is, with both in italics
Handwritten or typed without italics, they are underlined instead.
Tyrannosaurus rex, Homo sapiens and Escherichia coli are all examples of it
After first use, the genus may be abbreviated: T. rex, E. coli.
Bison bison and Gorilla gorilla gorilla are permitted in zoology but forbidden in botany
Repeating the genus as the epithet is a tautonym, which the plant code bans outright.
Under its rules the type specimen for our own species is the man who named it
William Stearn designated Linnaeus himself as the lectotype of Homo sapiens in 1959.
Key ideas
- Its power is the principle of priority: the earliest validly published name wins, so a species cannot end up with two official names, however many people describe it.
- The genus name carries information — anything called Panthera is a big cat — so the two words locate an organism in the tree of life as well as labelling it.
Quick-fire facts
- •Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) established it in Species Plantarum (1753) and Systema Naturae, 10th edition (1758); he has his own GoDeep entry as a scientist.
- •Gaspard Bauhin used two-part names as early as 1623, but Linnaeus applied the system consistently to all known life.
- •Two codes govern it: the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) and the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (ICN).
- •'sp.' means an unidentified single species, 'spp.' several; 'cf.' means the identification is tentative.
- •The full Linnaean hierarchy usually taught is domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species.
- •Epithets often honour people (Darwinia, Rafflesia arnoldii), places, or sponsors; taxonomists have named species after David Attenborough, Beyoncé and Greta Thunberg.
- •The same binomial can never be used twice within a kingdom, but a plant and an animal may share one — Prunella is both a self-heal and a bird genus.
- •Common misconception: the names need not be classical Latin. They must merely be treated as Latin, which permits Han solo, a trilobite, and Gelae baen, a beetle.
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Sources
- Carol Kaesuk Yoon — Naming Nature: The Clash Between Instinct and Science
- William T. Stearn — Botanical Latin
- International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature — International Code of Zoological Nomenclature