NAMING CEREMONY
Mr. Miyamoto has a pet inu. Roberto has a pet el perro. Amy has a pet le chien( luh-shh-yuhn). In case you are wondering what pet animals I am talking about….they are all different kinds of dogs. Bewilderment has taken over you, hasn’t it?
In order to eliminate the possibility of confusion due to multiple names given to the same organism in different parts of the world, scientific names were established.
| In the 18th century ‘Carolus Linnaeus’, a Swedish scientist classified plants and animals according to the similarities in their forms and divided the living things into one of the two “kingdoms” – the plant and the animal kingdoms. He further divided each of the kingdoms into smaller groups called “genera” (plural of “genus”). He again divided each genera into smaller groups called “species”. He also designed a system of naming organisms called “binomial (“two names”) nomenclature (“system of naming”)” which gave each organism two names – the genus (plural = genera) and the species (plural = species) names. Both the names would be similar to your first and last names. Genus is always capitalized while species is never capitalized. To be written correctly, the scientific name must be either underlined or written in italics. His classification system is still used today; however, we use a five kingdom system (instead of the two kingdom system). |
| Based on Carolus Linnaeus’ binomial nomenclature system, each organism is given a two-part scientific name. An organism may have more than one common name, but will only have one and only one scientific name. Whether you call it a mountain lion, cougar, or a puma, they are all common names for the same animal. However, it has a scientific name – Felis concolor. |
So many facts that have blown you away and are also very much fun!
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