Taxacom: species name vs specific epithet

[=?UTF-8?Q?Mario_Sch=c3=a4del?=]

Dear Derek,

while I most often comply with binomial nomenclature by providing the 
species name as /Homo sapiens/ or /H. sapiens/, I would like to offer a 
different perspective on the species nomenclature that helped me 
personally for dealing with species and genus level taxonomical 
situations. The term specific epithet stems from a time where a unique 
combination of genus name and specific epithet seemed necessary to 
communicate taxonomical issues. Since Lanham proposed their concept of 
uninomial nomenclature ? only a unique combination of species name (or 
specific epithet), author name and date is required (e.g. /sapiens/? 
Linnaeus, 1758) ? it should be clear that the unique combination of 
genus name and specific epithet, despite being required by the ICZN,? is 
more a nice to have feature than a necessity for communication, even 
more so as we live in the age of the internet, centralized databases and 
powerful search engines. So, for me personally, as someone with a strong 
preference for rank-free taxonomy, the specific epithet /is/ the species 
name and I only add the genus name or its abbreviation in front of it 
for redundancy and to not cause trouble during the publication process.

Best wishes,

Mario


Lanham, U. (1965). Uninominal nomenclature. /Systematic Zoology/, 
/14/(2), 144-144.



On 12/30/22 00:22, Derek Sikes via Taxacom wrote:
> All,
>
> Can we all stop using the term 'species' as a sometimes synonym for
> 'specific epithet'?
>
> This is a super widespread problem, made all the more common by all the
> database search interfaces that have a field called 'species'.
>
> A species name is composed of 2 words. Our species name is not 'sapiens',
> it is Homo sapiens.
>
> And yet so often I see things like this -
>
> https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwsc.nmbe.ch%2Fsearch&data=05%7C01%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7Cf252f0797c7946cddab708daea54d56b%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C638079947363838554%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=Ec6FKn0RFB9dSCCV7SrcPVgZs2jATxjyP%2F0fOTD%2BaME%3D&reserved=0
>
> which uses the term 'species' where it should say 'specific epithet'
>
> And also in introductory biology textbooks where they list something like:
>
> Genus - Homo
> species - sapiens
>
> Happy New Year!
> Derek
>
-- 
he/him
PhD Student
Zoomorphology
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universit?t M?nchen
Munich, Germany