Question

Write down conventions and rules of binomial nomenclature.

Answer 1

Binomial nomenclature is the naming of organisms in a scientific way. The meaning of the word resides in the name itself, i.e. it is made up of two terms, Genus and Species. There are certain conventions and rules according to which the organisms are named, introduced by Carl Linnaeus.

Complete answer:
The term was first introduced by Carl Linnaeus and it is also referred to as Binary nomenclature. A uniform set of principles are followed by a biologist from all over the world for naming the organisms.
There are two internationally acclaimed codes that are agreed upon by all the biologists over the globe for the naming purpose. They are as follows:
• International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (ICBN) – It deals with the biological nomenclature for plants.
• International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) – It deals with the biological nomenclature of animals.
The naming further follows certain conventions. Each scientific name allotted has two parts:
• Generic name
• Specific epithet
The remaining of the binary nomenclature rules for writing the scientific names of organisms include the following points:
• The scientific names of all organisms should be in Latin. Hence, they are written in italics.
• There are always two parts to a name. The first denotes the name of the genus and the second word denotes the name of the species.
• To specify its Latin origin, the names are handwritten, they are underlined or italicized if typed.
The name of the genus of an organism always starts with a capital letter while the species name is written in small letters.
For example- The scientific name of humans is denoted as Homo sapiens. The word ‘Homo’ represents the genus and the word ‘sapiens’ represents a particular species.

Note:
These conventions and rules for the binomial nomenclature are set. - Some other terms-
Taxon – A group of organisms typically treated at a given rank (category), for example, a genus or phylum.
Generic Epithet – It represents the first word of a scientific name, which describes the genus the organism belongs to.
Specific Epithet – The represents the second word of a scientific name in binary nomenclature, describing the species.