Jelle Zijlstra :
There are lots of unlike system of scientific name with dissimilar conventions or rules govern them : chemicals , genes , stars , archeological cultures , and so on . But the one I ’m familiar with is the naming system for animals .
The forward-looking naming system for animals derives from the works of the eighteenth - hundred Swedish natural scientist Carl von Linné ( Latinized to Carolus Linnaeus ) . Linnaeus introduced the arrangement ofbinominal nomenclature , where animate being have names composed of two part , likeHomo sapiens . Linnaeus wrote in Latin and most his name were of Latin lineage , although a few were infer from Greek , likeRhinocerosfor rhinos , or from other spoken language , likeSus babyrussafor the babirusa ( from Malay ) .
Other people also started using Linnaeus ’s system , and a organization of rules was recrudesce and finally codified into what is now prognosticate the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature ( ICZN ) . In this shell , therefore , there is indeed an external standard govern naming pattern . However , it does not put very strict requirements on the derivation of names : they are merelyrequiredto be in the Latin rudiment .
In recitation a lot of well - known scientific names are derived from Greek . This is especially true for genus name : Tyrannosaurus , Macropus(kangaroos),Drosophila(fruit flies),Caenorhabditis(nematode worms),Peromyscus(deermice ) , and so on . Species names are more potential to be derived from Latin ( e.g. ,T. rex , C. elegans , P. maniculatus , butDrosophila melanogasteris Greek again ) .
One interesting pattern I ’ve noticed in mammalian is that even when Linnaeus constitute the first genus in a group by a Romance name , ordinarily most later public figure for related genus utilize Greek rootage instead . For model , Linnaeus gave the nameMusto computer mouse , and that is still the genus name for the house mouse , but most related to genus use compounds of the Greek - deduce root -mys(from μῦς ) , which also means " mouse . " likewise , bats for Linnaeus wereVespertilio , but there are many more compounds of the Grecian root -nycteris(νυκτερίς ) ; pigs areSus , but compounds usually use Greek - choerus(χοῖρος ) or - hys/-hyus(ὗς ) ; weasel areMustelabut compounds ordinarily apply - galeor - galea(γαλέη ) ; Equus caballus areEquusbut compound use - hippus(ἵππος ) .
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