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Why Do Animals Have Scientific Names?
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The king vulture Sarcorhamphus papa has a scientific name
that means "father or leader with a fleshy, curved beak."
There's Acinonyx jubatus jubatus, and Dendrobates azureus.
There's Phascolarctos cinereus adustus, and Haliaeetus
leucocephalus. Say what? What a jumble of letters! Why can't they
just call them a cheetah, a poison frog, a koala, and a bald eagle?
Scientific names, also known as Latin names or taxonomic names,
are given to animals, plants, and even microorganisms to
categorize them in a system called taxonomy. Most people don't
use these names, or even know them for that matter. They use the
common names like koala and cheetah. But those common names
can change from place to place, and they don't provide much
information about the animal. Scientists, researchers, botanists,
zoologists, and the staff of zoos and wildlife parks need a more
exact way to identify an animal or plant. That's why they rely on the
scientific names.
What do the names mean?
So what do scientific names mean, and why do they have several parts? For one thing, they are
usually Latin or Greek words. Why? Because when Carolus Linnaeus started this system of
categorization in the 1700s, Latin and Greek were the languages used for literature and science.
This poison frog's scientific name, Dendrobates azureus,
means blue tree-walker!
We have continued this tradition ever since, although some
scientific names also have words from other languages. The
words can mean several different things: they might describe
how an animal or plant looks, where it is found, or who
discovered it. Sometimes a scientific name honors another
scientist, like the flower Fuchsia. A man named Charles Plumier
described this plant for science, but he named it after someone
whom he admired, Leonard Fuchs.
Animal groupings
The first word in a scientific name is called the genus. It's a generic term that refers to a grouping of
animals. The next word is the species, which is the specific animal in that group. The third word is the
subspecies, which indicates a particular variety of these animals that have something in common with
each other, like the color of their fur or the place where they live. For example, the poison frog's genus
name is Dendrobates, which comes from Greek words meaning "one that walks in trees." The frog's
species name is azureus, which comes from the French word meaning "blue." So, we have a "blue
tree walker," and since these frogs are indeed bright blue and live in trees, it's an appropriate name. If
some of them were only found in Madagascar, the subspecies name madagascarensis might be
added. Then we have a "blue tree walker from Madagascar," Dendrobates azureus madgascariensis.
Make up your own!
Our scientific name word lists have lots of choices and examples so you can try to figure out what
other animals' scientific names might be. Or, create a name for an animal that you make up yourself!