species-examples

Species Examples

Examples of common and scientific names of living things, which could be marked up with a "species" (or similar) microformat. Note use of matching pairs of examples, where possible.

binominals

Birds

Black-tailed Godwit on West Midland Bird Club's Ladywalk reserve latest news page

<b class="bird">Black-tailed Godwit</b>

Limosa limosa on West Midland Bird Club's county lists'

<td>Limosa limosa</td>

Mammal

Wolf on International Wolf Center

Canis lupus on NPS.gov

Fish

Northern pike on Minnesota Department of Natural Resources

Esox lucius on Pike & Zander

Insect

Death’s Head Hawkmoth on Animal Teachers

Acherontia atropos on UK Moths

Migrant Hawker (Aeshna mixta) on Sussex Biodiversity Record Centre

Arachnid

Tarantulas on Nature.com

Costa Rican zebra tarantula (Aphonopelma seemanni) on Nature.com

Araneus angulatus on Sussex Biodiversity Record Centre

Plant

Bog Pimpernel on Map Reading's Wildflower Images

Anagallis tenella on BioImages

Fungi

Amanita muscaria on California Fungi

• as Amanita muscaria (L. per Fr.) Hooker
• as Amanita muscaria var. flavivolvata

Fly Agaric on Trees for Life

Rhodocollybia maculata (Albertini & Schweinitz: Fries) Singer on [1]

• also written as Rhodocollybia maculata (Albertini & Schweinitz ex Fries) Singer
• (This is where a post-Linnean author is given special rights (because his descriptions were comparatively complete - i.e. recognisable) so his interpretation of earlier names is taken as the sense meant by the original author. Think these used to be "apud" and are now "ex" although a colon has also been used. There are only a few sanctioning authors, the main one being Elias Fries.(Fr.) )

More than binominals

Authority

Pica pica Linnaeus, (1758) on Wikipedia: European Magpie

(i.e. named by Linnaeus in 1758)

Unspecified species

Podiceps sp. on Bird Life

<i>Podiceps</i> sp.

Psyllid plant hopper on Ramblings of a Naturalist blog

Sub-species

Animal

Larus glaucoides kumlieni on BirdGuides

Kumlien's Gull on Birds Ireland

Plant

Pisum sativum L. subsp. sativum on [2] (also has other examples; note lack of required italics)

<b>Pisum sativum</b> L. subsp. <b>sativum</b>

Cultivars (plant)

Chamaecyparis lawsoniana 'Aureomarginata' on Wikipedia: Cultivar

<dd><i>Chamaecyparis lawsoniana</i> 'Aureomarginata'</dd>

Chamaecyparis lawsoniana 'Golden Wonder' on plantago.nl

Cultivar groups (plant)

Brassica oleracea Botrytis Group on Wikipedia: Cultivar

Trade names (plant)

Rosa Peace on Wikipedia: Cultivar

("Peace" is a trade designation or "selling name" for the cultivar R. 'Madame A. Meilland' and should therefore be printed in a different typeface from the rest of the name, without any quote marks)

Sunflower 'Giant Single' on Johnsons Seeds

Sunflower 'Infrared' F1 on Johnsons Seeds

(Note "F1" cross designation)

Variety (plant)

Pisum sativum var. macrocarpon on Dave's Garden

Sub-variety (plant)

Betula ermani var. genuina subvar. brevidentata on National Council for the Conservation of Plants and Gardens, Gloucestershire Group (plus many other examples)

Form (plant)

Acanthocalycium spiniflorum f. klimpelianum on Wikipedia: form (botany)

• aka Acanthocalycium spiniflorum forma klimpelianum

Sense (plant)

Ranunculus aquatilis s.l. and R. aquatilis s.s; on Blithfield Reservoir: Survey of Flowering Plants... (see also footnotes on that page)

Cross (plant)

Digitalis x mertonensis on Hortax

The hybrid name for all plants derived from the cross between D. purpurea and D. grandiflora. The "x" indicates the hybrid status.

× Fatshedera lizei on Scientific Plant Names, Oregon State Univ., Landscape Plants

Strain (bacteria)

Escherichia coli O157:H7 on FDA.gov

E.Coli on BBC news

Misc

Superseded names

Tringa bartramia superseded by Bartramia longicauda on West Midland Bird Club's Upland Sandpiper article

GUID

NBN Taxon Key: NBNSYS0000005133 for European Otter, Lutra lutra, on NBN Species Dictionary

Wikipedia

Black-tailed Godwit on Wikipedia: Black-tailed Godwit

Wikipedia uses several sets of markup, e.g. (in-line styles and links, plus some other markup, removed, for clarity):

<p>The <b>Black-tailed Godwit</b>, <i>Limosa limosa</i>

and:

<tr>
	<td>Kingdom:</td>
	<td>Animalia</td>
</tr>
<tr>
	<td>Phylum:</td>
	<td>Chordata</td>
</tr>
<tr>
	<td>Class:</td>
	<td>Aves</td>
</tr>
<tr>
	<td>Order:</td>
	<td>Charadriiformes</td>
</tr>
<tr>
	<td>Family:</td>
	<td>Scolopacidae</td>
</tr>
<tr>
	<td>Genus:</td>
	<td>Limosa</td>
</tr>
<tr>
	<td>Species:</td>
	<td>L. limosa</td>
</tr>

<tr>
	<th>binominal name</th>
</tr>
<tr>
	<td>Limosa limosa</i>
	<td>(Linnaeus, 1758)</td>
</tr>

Quantitative evidence

For evidence of quantitative, rather than qualitative, use of species' and other taxonomic names, see [3] and [4]. Furthermore:

• Wikipedia:
  • All species articles, e.g. Little Ringed Plover (see above)
  • All genera articles, e.g. Charadrius (Plover)
  • All higher classes, e.g. Charadriidae
  • All regional lists, e.g. List of British birds
  • All dedicatees, e.g. Alexander Wilson
  • All authorities, e.g. Giovanni Antonio Scopoli
  • All images of living things, e.g. Charadrius dubius 4 (Marek Szczepanek).jpg
  • Many reserves, lakes, and other places of interest, e.g. Belvide
  • Many biological authors and illustrators, e.g. John Audubon; Gilbert White
  • Random articles on other topics, e.g. Balancing lake}
  • All the above, again, for each alternative language e.g. Welsh; French; Chinese

• Wikimedia Commons
  • All species indexes, e.g. Charadrius dubius
  • Each individual image, e.g. Charadrius dubius 1 (Marek Szczepanek).jpg
  • Each family list Charadriidae

• Wiktionary
  • All species articles, e.g. American Golden Plover
  • All family articles, e.g. Plover
  • Many of the above, in other langauges e.g. Italian; Russian

• Wikispecies
  • Every speices, e.g. Charadrius dubius
  • Every genus, e.g. Charadrius
  • Every sub-family, e.g. Charadriinae
  • Every family, e.g. Charadriidae
  • and so on, for every other rank
  • Every image (e.g. Charadrius hiaticula He.jpg

• Google
  • Google finds about 37,600,000 for "E coli".
    • Google finds about 19,500,000 for "Escherichia coli"
    • Google finds about 722,000 for "Ecoli".
  • Google finds about 1,380,000 for "Clostridium difficile".
  • Google finds about 841,000 for "Passer domesticus".
  • Google images finds about 3,140 for "Passer domesticus".
  • Google finds about 602,000 for "Acer palmatum"
  • At the time of writing, every single one of the first 20 Google results for "Noctule Bat" also includes the scientific name Nyctalus noctula.

• ARKive - 2000 species ("It is ARKive's current aim to compile audio-visual records, where such media exists, for the 15,000-plus species currently threatened with extinction, according to the World Conservation Union's (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species.")

• Royal Horticultural Society - RHS Plant Finder - 70,00 plants

• List of Prokaryotic Names (formerly List of Bacterial Names) - 2,032 *files*; 10,268 published names (to 2006-09-07)

• UK National Biodiversity Network's Species Dictionary

• UK National Biodiversity Network Gateway - 20 million+ species records

• Species 2000 - 450,000 species

• BioImages - Virtual Fieldguide - 53,000 images depicting 4,600 species (see Wiki comments from site owner)

• Animal Diversity Web - "Thousands of species accounts [plus] descriptions of levels of organization above the species level, especially phyla, classes, and in some cases, orders and families. Hundreds of hyperlinked pages and images illustrate the traits and general biology of these groups"

• uBio
  • NameBank is a repository of millions of recorded biological names and facts that link those names together.
  • ClassificationBank stores multiple classifications and taxonomic concepts that are the result of expert opinions. It extends the functionality of NameBank.

• BirdLife International - all birds of the world (~10,000)

Planned sites

• Herbaria United (part of The website of the Botanical Collection Managers Group (BCMG), a specialist group of the Linnean Society of London) - "The UK has the world's largest and oldest collections of herbarium specimens held in trust by museums and universities. A new project is just getting underway to put all this online."

Notable websites

These high-profile websites use species names

• Amazon
  • search for "House Sparrow"

• BBC News
  • Fewer birds spotted in UK gardens
  • Study to solve sparrow's decline riddle

• Encyclopaedia Britannica - all species, e.g.
  • Starling

• Flickr
  • Tag for moth genera 'citheronia'
    • Sample result from that search

• CNN
  • Disease threatens bald eagle population

• eBay
  • search for "House Sparrow"

• The Guardian
  • The call of the wildlife
  • Sparrow joins 'raped' duck in Dutch museum (note improper capitalisation "passer domesticus")

• London Zoo
  • Tawny frogmouth

• MSN-Encarta - all species, e.g.
  • Search for "vulgaris"

• MySpace
  • [5]

• Nature
  • Avian flu web focus

• NASA
  • SP-401 Skylab, Classroom in Space. Part II - Student Experiments ("The common Cross spider (Araneus diadematus)")

• New York Times
  • Where the Eagles Fly: Seeing the National Symbol

• Snopes (Urban Legends Reference Pages)
  • Fish Fly

• Yahoo Groups
  • passerdomesticus species as group name!

Use in blogs

• Technorati search for "Passer domesticus" (367 found, as at 2006-09-25)
• Technorati search for "Acer palmatum" (682 found, as at 2006-09-25)
• Technorati search for "Homo sapiens" (40,932 found, as at 2006-09-25)
• Technorati search for "birding" (26,472 found, as at 2006-09-25)
• Ramblings of a Naturalist
• The Square Metre
• Windowbox Wildlife
• RXWildlife

And finally...

Gary Larson, in his book The Far Side Gallery (Warner Books, 1980, ISBN 0751502367) has a cartoon, showing two entomologists sitting down to eat dinner in a jungle. One says to the other "Hey! What's this Drosophila melanogaster doing in my soup?"

Contributors

• Andy Mabbett (proponent)
• Malcolm Storey (per e-mail)
• Charles Roper, Sussex Biodiversity Record Centre (proponent)

See also

species-brainstorming