Now when we name taxa, above the genus level, the taxa are what is called uninomial. They have a single name. The name is written with a capital letter, not in italics, and there's some examples here. Hominidae, I've mentioned, is the family that includes humans. Echinodermata is a phylum that includes starfish and sea urchins.
Rosaceae is the rose family. There's a rule that names of animal families always end in I-D-A-E. And you see that in hominidae, for example, and felidae.
Plant family names end in A-C-E-A-E, as in rosaceae. Below the level of family, the names of genera are capitalized and italicized, or they can be underlined. Before we had word processors, we used underlining on typewriters, and you can still underline when you're handwriting. But either way is correct.
So these are some examples of the names of genera. This is a single word, always written in italics or underlined. The names of species have two words. That's the binomial nomenclature.
It includes the genus name as well as the specific name. But keep in mind that the name of the species has to have those two words. The human species is Homo sapiens, not just sapiens.
Sapiens is not the correct word. It always has to have both of them together. And they are always again written in italics or underlined just like the name of the genus by itself.
Within the species name we can abbreviate the genus name after the first reference and just give the first letter. Optionally, we can cite the author and the date of the name, the person who named the organism. You don't normally see that, but sometimes you will see the citation of the author.
So homo sapiens is humans. We can abbreviate that to H sapiens as long as it's clear what the H stands for. We can add to that, not in italics, the name of the person who named these.
species, in this case Linnaeus, and that's treated in the sense as part of the name. And we can even add the date if we wish, optionally, if it's helpful. Canis lupus is wolves. Canis latrans, we might cite the author and date of that, that's the coyote, or Canis aureus is the jackal. Zia maize is corn.
So those are all examples of species names. And students remember that when I ask them to tell me on a test that they should be italicized or underlined, but they don't necessarily actually do it. So whenever you write the name of a species or a genus, you should underline it if you're handwriting or put it in italics.
Now, adjectives and common names that are derived from the names of taxa are used informally, and we don't capitalize them. For example, a hominid is a member of the family hominidae, and we don't capitalize that. A peripheron is a sponge that belongs to the phylum Periphera.
Each named species has what's called a type specimen. When the person that names the organism publishes that name, they designate an actual physical museum specimen to be the type. And the type is not, despite what the name might imply, the type is not intended to be necessarily typical. It certainly doesn't imply anything typological.
It's not an ideal representation of the species necessarily. But it has a more mundane person. purpose and that is to simply tie the name of the organism, the name of the taxon, to the real organisms.
So when you designate a type for a species, that species name applies to that particular specimen and by definition everything else that belongs to the same species. If it's the oldest name... for that species, then that is a valid name for the organism or for the taxon.
So if a species is split, for example, if we have a species of organisms and we study it more carefully and decide that really there's two different species here, Which one gets the name that we've been using? Which one gets a new name? Well, we have to look at the type specimen and find out which species the type specimen belongs to, and whichever one that is, that keeps the original name. And if there are other, if other organisms don't belong to that species, then they may need to get a new name.
So that's an example of how we would use a type specimen. Now it so happens that I am in the process of naming a species of big-eared climbing rats that lives in the rainforest in southern Mexico in the state of Chiapas. And they're found from just a, really from a single locality in the mountains, in the rainforest, in the state of Chiapas.
And I have borrowed a bunch of specimens from the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at Berkeley. And when I describe the species, this is going to be the type specimen. This is a specimen that I borrowed from the museum at Berkeley.
And when I send it back to them, which I will do in the next week or so, I will tell them that this particular museum specimen is the one that is going to be the type. And they will take that and they will put it in a special museum cabinet. and it will be treated differently from the other specimens. There are special territorial procedures that have to be followed for a type specimen. This isn't the type yet, but it will be as soon as the new species name is published.
I'm going to name this species Ototylomys chiophensis because it comes from the state of Chiophus. And in addition to the actual study skin, the specimen also has a... the skull which is used for study and for the description of the species.
And this also is part of the type specimen. So anytime in the future, in 50 years or 100 years or 500 years, if there's any question about the application of the name that I'm going to give this, they can refer to the type specimen. I can get out this skull or this study skin. and look at that and then determine which species this specimen belongs to. And that's the one that will get the name Odotylomys chiophensis.
Now, I get to choose the type specimen because I'm naming the species. And I didn't choose this particular specimen necessarily because it's typical, although it really is. I chose it mostly because it's in probably the best... condition of most of the specimens that I looked at. And so when the species description is published, it will include an illustration of the type specimen and a designation of the specimen number and where the type specimen is deposited.