The Name Game

The Mock Turtle’s Story

"Very true", said the Duchess:                         

"Flamingos and mustard both bite.”

And the moral of that is – 
“Birds of a feather flock together."                       
"Only, mustard isn’t a bird", Alice remarked. 

"Right as usual,” said the Duchess: 
"what a clear way you have of putting things!"                    "It’s a mineral, I think," said Alice. 
"Of course it is" said the Duchess,      
 who seemed ready to agree to everything

                                                       

  Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, 1865                                                 Lewis Carroll 

Since we share our planet with anywhere from 1.5 million-30 million species of organisms, there is a need to 1) identify them; 2) name them; 3) organize these species into categories which reflect their characteristics & evolutionary relationships.  Such is the science of taxonomy. 

Binomial nomenclature (remember high school biology?) refers to the  scientific name (not Latin name- this is a misnomer-as many names have Greek origins) of an organism. Black mustard, for example, Brassica nigra, belongs to the genus, Brassica and the species, nigra.  This precise way of naming things (thanks to Carl Linnaeus ) not only provides us with evolutionary information about the organism, it also allows us to unambiguously refer to and communicate internationally about a particular species.