Conventions for common names?

[B. J. Tindall]

Apart from dinosaurs (and my kids were even younger when they learnt the
names) virtually all bacteria are known by their scientific names. In some
cases one uses "common names", but these are usually names associated with
a disease - "the plague bacillus" or "meningococci" (associated with
meningitis and Neiserria meningitidis). Otherwise there is a large circle
of end users ranging from medics and the pharmaceutical inductry to your
average yoghurt package (check out if Lactobacillus is mentioned). Okay it
does get confusing when your health food shop is still selling Spirulina
tables when the scientifc community has finally come to the conclusion that
Spirulina platensis should be put back in the genus Arthrospira........but
that is another topic.
Brian

At 15:12 22.8.2001 -0700, Curtis Clark wrote:
>At 02:36 PM 8/22/2001, Byron J. Adams wrote:
>
>>Are there any guidelines or "rules of thumb" for establishing common names
>>for organisms that heretofore are known only by their scientific names?
>
>Don't.
>
>If nine-year-old boys can learn dinosaur names, growers can learn nematode
>names.
>
>
>--
>Curtis Clark                 http://www.csupomona.edu/~jcclark/
>Biological Sciences Department             Voice (909) 869-4062
>California State Polytechnic University      FAX (909) 869-4078
>Pomona CA 91768-4032  USA                 jcclark at csupomona.edu
>


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