An explanation of scientific names.
Page updated 22 Nov 1996
Scientific names are also known as Latin names.
As you probably know there are many different languages in the world. Here in New Zealand alone you can find many different languages. Most people speak English, but Maori is also spoken. At school you can learn to speak French and German, and perhaps even some of the Asian languages like Mandarin and Japanese. There are many immigrants in New Zealand who speak different languages still, for instance Samoan, Tongan, Fijian, Dutch (the Netherlands), Afrikaans (South Africa) and some even think that the Australians speak a different language (only kidding).
Scientific names are just another language. Most of the words in European languages are based on words used by the early Greeks and Romans. For instance, "climate" is a word brought to the English language through French or Latin (from the Romans) but it originally came from the Greek word "klima". You can find many examples like this in your dictionary.
Latin (quite often a mixture of Latin and Greek) was the language used by educated people and by the church. So it is not very surprising that Latin is used to give scientific names to animals and plants.
The binomial system.
For a long time scientists faced the problem that one species of plant or animal might have many different names according to which language you spoke (for instance the Maori name for kingfisher is kotare). You can imagine that this caused all sorts of problems when scientists got together to talk about their research. They might all be talking about the same plant but using different names, very confusing. Carl Linnaeus (a Swedish biologist) decided in 1758 that everybody should be using the same name to describe the same species and proposed a universal naming system for all creatures.
This naming system is now known as "binomial nomenclature" (bi = two, nomen = name, calo = call, so it translates as "two-name name-calling"). It is quite simple really. Each species has a surname and a personal name. Just like you do. If you are called Jo Smith then Smith is your surname, and Jo is your personal name.
Scientists call the family name the "generic name" or "genus" and it always has a capital letter as the first letter. The personal name is called the "specific name" and is always in entirely in lower case. Unlike European people names the family (generic) name comes first followed by the personal (specific) name. For instance the Latin name for the tree species karaka is Corynocarpus laevigatus (ps. as a rule we either italize or underline the scientific name so that you know that it is a species name). Corynocarpus is the family name, and there are at least another 4 species that have the same family name (just like your brothers and sisters would have the same surname). The specific name laevigatus is like your first name.
Not quite gobbledygook.
These Latin names also mean something. Corynocarpus means that the seed looks like a club. If you look at the seed of karaka you will find that it looks like a very fat baseball club. Laevigatus refers to the fact that the leaves are smooth. The same used to happen to people names. People called Smith probably had a blacksmith as a (many-times) great-grandfather. And people called White might have had a baker or flour miller in the family who was always covered in white flour. It is the same with scientific names. They either describe the plant or animal (using Latin or Latinised English) or tell you who first gave the species that name. The New Zealand tree Weinmannia silvicola, towai or tawhero, is named after the German botanist Weinmann, who first named this family of trees (silvicola means growing in the woods).
The gathering of the Clans.
Just like the clans of Scotland and Ireland species are grouped in clans. They might not always have the same surnames, but they are part of the same clan. This is the same with plants and animals. Plants are grouped together in families and animals in classes.
A good example of this is the relationships between pohutukawa, manuka and kanuka (species that most of you will be familiar with). The Latin names for these species are as follows;
| Latin name | |
|
| Common name | Genus | Specific | Family
|
|---|
| Pohutukawa | Metrosideros | excelsa | Myrtaceae
|
| Manuka | Leptospermum | scoparium | Myrtaceae
|
| Kanuka | Kunzea | ericoides | Myrtaceae
|
| Common or nick name | Surname | Individual name | Clan name
|
As you can see the genus (=surnames) names are all quite different, but the family (=clan) names show that these species all belong to the same family.
If you ever have a change to look at the flowers of these species you will notice that they do have a lot in common. The seed capsules look even more similar and all these species produce very small fine red coloured seed that almost looks like short fine fur. By the way, Eucalyptus, bottlebrush, and feijoa trees also belong to the Myrtaceae family.
Families are groupings of species with similar features. Usually more than one feature is used to identify which family a species belongs to. It might be the way a flower looks, what sort of seed the tree produces and may be even leaf shape.
Lazy scientists
Scientists are just as lazy as other people and get rather bored writing out full Latin names all the time. So, the convention is that the first time a species is introduced in a document its Latin name is written out fully. The next time that this species is mentioned the genus name is shortened to the first letter. For instance, pohutukawa Metrosideros excelsa could now be shortened to M. excelsa because I have already mentioned it by its full name on this page. To make it even lazier any close family members of pohutukawa (eg Northern rata M. robusta or Southern rata M. umbellata) can now have their genus names shortened immediately, without even having to write out the full name once.
Whenever a new chapter or document is started full names must be used the first time that a species is mentioned, even if it was mentioned in the previous chapter. Ofcourse, there are exceptions to these rules. Sometimes you might have several species from different genus's that have the same initial letter. In that case it is better to write out the full name every time to avoid confusion.
I will continue to update the pages associated with Operation Fruit with more information about various species. Including what the Latin names mean, but with the help of a dictionary (or a convenient Latin teacher) you can probably work out what most of the scientific names mean for yourselves. Have fun.
Click here to go back to the main page or to the species list.