11 ms·

That's just the established naming convention. For brown bears, you have parvorder Ursida, superfamily Ursoidea, family Ursidae, subfamily Ursinae, tribe Ursini

That's just the established naming convention. For brown bears, you have parvorder Ursida, superfamily Ursoidea, family Ursidae, subfamily Ursinae, tribe Ursini, genus Ursus, and finally species Ursus arctos. When there are millions of taxonomic names, you want to establish some kind of regular structure, because you are going to run out of useful distinctive names.

thaumasiotes 25d ago
> and finally species Ursus arctos What happened there? The normal thing would be for the species name to be identical with the genus name, but as far as I can tell Ursus ursus doesn't refer to anything. Why break into Greek?
- jcranmer 25d ago
  Ask Linnaeus? Wikipedia has a picture of Linnaeus's 1735 taxonomy [1] giving what I think is Ursus ursus, Ursus coati, and Ursus wickhead, and the 10th edition in 1758 has Ursus arctos, Ursus luscus, Ursus meles, and Ursus lotor. I don't know when it changed between the 1st and 10th editions, or why, and trying to read Latin taxonomical texts with many abbreviations makes my head hurt. [1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/Linnaeus_-_Regnum_Animale_%281735%29.png?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=original https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/Linnaeus...
  - mmooss 25d ago
    > I don't know when it changed between the 1st and 10th editions If we're talking about Linnaeus's Systema Naturae, quite a bit: Binomial nomenclature wasn't included until the 10th edition, for example. And from an prominent 2015 paper [0]: "In modern-day classifications, the starting point for botanical names is Linnaeus' Species Plantarum and for zoological names it is the tenth edition of the Systema Naturae." [0] Michael A. Ruggiero, Dennis P. Gordon, et al. A Higher Level Classification of All Living Organisms. PloS One. (April 2015) https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0119248 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... (see also this correction: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0130114 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... )
  - thaumasiotes 24d ago
    I'm amused that Linnaeus put a joke into the table. The characteres generum column entry for Homo is Nosce te ipsum, "know thyself". The scan is at a very low resolution for such a significant document. :(
- mmooss 25d ago
  > The normal thing would be for the species name to be identical with the genus name What does this mean? Most species names differ from their genus name, for example Homo sapiens. But I suspect I misunderstand you. Binomial nomenclature, the standard that was developed by Linnaeus (in the 10th edition cited by jcranmer), is Genus species, with the genus always capitalized and the species always plural - in case that is somehow relevant.
  - thaumasiotes 24d ago
    > Most species names differ from their genus name, for example Homo sapiens. But I suspect I misunderstand you. A genus is typically named after a species. That species retains its name as the species name, and gets it again as the genus name. So, for example, the Latin word for "toad" is bufo, and the name Bufo bufo went to the species that was considered the most standard, toadiest toad, which wikipedia still calls the "common toad" today. More exotic toads will be called Bufo [something weird]. Ursus arctos clearly has the same form; it's the Latin word for "bear" followed by... the Greek word for "bear". The normal thing would have been to name this species, the prototype for all bears, Ursus ursus. Homo sapiens is a special case where we specifically wanted to say something nice about the species.
    - mmooss 24d ago
      Thanks for explaining the naming of protypical species, though I think terms like 'typically', 'weird' and 'special case' overstate the case significantly. Though I'm not an expert in the field (maybe you are?), I encounter many binomial names and few where genus and species match. How does that reconcile? Here are a list of common animals, and then a comprehensive encylopedia; notice that very few names match genus and species: https://byjus.com/biology/scientific-names-of-animals-and-plants/ https://byjus.com/biology/scientific-names-of-animals-and-pl... https://a-z-animals.com/animals/scientific/ https://a-z-animals.com/animals/scientific/ And while I'm thinking of it, among the most common binomial names - and most typical species - in science are Escherichia coli, Drosophila melanogaster, Caenorhabditis elegans, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Danio rerio, ..., though there is Mus musculus! Homo sapiens doesn't seem like a special case.

thaumasiotes 25d ago

> and finally species Ursus arctos What happened there? The normal thing would be for the species name to be identical with the genus name, but as far as I can tell Ursus ursus doesn't refer to anything. Why break into Greek?

jcranmer 25d ago
Ask Linnaeus? Wikipedia has a picture of Linnaeus's 1735 taxonomy [1] giving what I think is Ursus ursus, Ursus coati, and Ursus wickhead, and the 10th edition in 1758 has Ursus arctos, Ursus luscus, Ursus meles, and Ursus lotor. I don't know when it changed between the 1st and 10th editions, or why, and trying to read Latin taxonomical texts with many abbreviations makes my head hurt. [1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/Linnaeus_-_Regnum_Animale_%281735%29.png?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=original https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/Linnaeus...
- mmooss 25d ago
  > I don't know when it changed between the 1st and 10th editions If we're talking about Linnaeus's Systema Naturae, quite a bit: Binomial nomenclature wasn't included until the 10th edition, for example. And from an prominent 2015 paper [0]: "In modern-day classifications, the starting point for botanical names is Linnaeus' Species Plantarum and for zoological names it is the tenth edition of the Systema Naturae." [0] Michael A. Ruggiero, Dennis P. Gordon, et al. A Higher Level Classification of All Living Organisms. PloS One. (April 2015) https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0119248 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... (see also this correction: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0130114 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... )
- thaumasiotes 24d ago
  I'm amused that Linnaeus put a joke into the table. The characteres generum column entry for Homo is Nosce te ipsum, "know thyself". The scan is at a very low resolution for such a significant document. :(
mmooss 25d ago
> The normal thing would be for the species name to be identical with the genus name What does this mean? Most species names differ from their genus name, for example Homo sapiens. But I suspect I misunderstand you. Binomial nomenclature, the standard that was developed by Linnaeus (in the 10th edition cited by jcranmer), is Genus species, with the genus always capitalized and the species always plural - in case that is somehow relevant.
- thaumasiotes 24d ago
  > Most species names differ from their genus name, for example Homo sapiens. But I suspect I misunderstand you. A genus is typically named after a species. That species retains its name as the species name, and gets it again as the genus name. So, for example, the Latin word for "toad" is bufo, and the name Bufo bufo went to the species that was considered the most standard, toadiest toad, which wikipedia still calls the "common toad" today. More exotic toads will be called Bufo [something weird]. Ursus arctos clearly has the same form; it's the Latin word for "bear" followed by... the Greek word for "bear". The normal thing would have been to name this species, the prototype for all bears, Ursus ursus. Homo sapiens is a special case where we specifically wanted to say something nice about the species.
  - mmooss 24d ago
    Thanks for explaining the naming of protypical species, though I think terms like 'typically', 'weird' and 'special case' overstate the case significantly. Though I'm not an expert in the field (maybe you are?), I encounter many binomial names and few where genus and species match. How does that reconcile? Here are a list of common animals, and then a comprehensive encylopedia; notice that very few names match genus and species: https://byjus.com/biology/scientific-names-of-animals-and-plants/ https://byjus.com/biology/scientific-names-of-animals-and-pl... https://a-z-animals.com/animals/scientific/ https://a-z-animals.com/animals/scientific/ And while I'm thinking of it, among the most common binomial names - and most typical species - in science are Escherichia coli, Drosophila melanogaster, Caenorhabditis elegans, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Danio rerio, ..., though there is Mus musculus! Homo sapiens doesn't seem like a special case.