[uf-discuss] Proposal: species

[Andy Mabbett]

There should, I believe, be a microformat for the markup of plant and
animal names, to include their scientific names. Consider:

        <abbr class="species" title="Anas platyrhynchos">Mallard</abbr>

or
        <span class="species">Anas platyrhynchos</span>


This would also allow of the marking-up of superseded scientific names:

        The species was classified <abbr class="species"
        title="Bartramia longicauda">Tringa longicauda</abbr> by Johann
        Matthäus Bechstein, in 1812.

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Thought would be needed, as to how to mark up genera:

        It was some kind of <abbr class="species" title="Podiceps
        sp.>grebe</abbr>.

sub- species:

        Larus glaucoides kumlieni
        Pisum sativum subsp. sativum

varieties:

        Pisum sativum var. macrocarpon

and strains of bacteria:

        Escherichia coli O157:H7


It might also be sensible to allow for the marking up of other levels of
hierarchy, such as phylum, class, order and family.

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Since there are a few cases where the same scientific name describes
both a plant and an animal [Not sure if this is to genera or species
level], we may need:

        <abbr class="animal" title="Anas platyrhynchos">Mallard</abbr>

(allowing for taxonomic Kingdoms, e.g. "animal", "plant", "fungi" or
"bacteria" (or "Animalia", "Plantae", "Fungi", "Monera")).

or

        <abbr class="bird" title="Anas platyrhynchos">Mallard</abbr>

(allowing for taxonomic Classes, e.g. "insect", "reptile", "mammal" (or
"Aves", "Mammalia", "Insecta", "Proteobacteria", etc.)).


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The microformat would allow user agents to be configured to perform
look-ups on on-line databases of species, according to user preferences.
Specification of the taxonomic class would help user agents to know
which such databases were applicable (i.e., use database A for plants,
but database B for mammals and database C for insects.)

It would also allow for more specific searching (do I mean "crow" or do
I mean "Corvus corone"?)

The specification should encourage, but not mandate, the correct
capitalisation of scientific names.

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References:

        <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_classification>
        <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binomial_nomenclature>

        International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature
        <http://www.iczn.org/>

        International Code of Botanical Nomenclature
        <http://www.bgbm.fu-berlin.de/iapt/nomenclature/code/SaintLouis/0000St.Luistitle.htm>
        (aka <http://tinyurl.com/ht3pt>)

Thoughts, anyone?
-- 
Andy Mabbett
                Say "NO!" to compulsory ID Cards:  <http://www.no2id.net/>

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