Scientific Names of Plants and Animals: GK List

Every known plant and animal carries a two part Latin name that is the same in every country and every language, so that a scientist in Chennai and one in Chile mean exactly the same organism. That system is binomial nomenclature, and general science papers ask it in the simplest possible form: a name is given and the organism has to be identified, or the organism is given and the name has to be chosen. This note explains the rules of the system and then lists the names examiners actually set, for animals, for crops and for the national symbols of India.

Binomial nomenclature and its rules

The system was given by the Swedish naturalist Carolus Linnaeus, who used it in Systema Naturae and applied it to plants in Species Plantarum, and he is therefore called the father of taxonomy. A binomial name has two words. The first is the genus, which is always written with a capital letter; the second is the species epithet, which is always written in small letters. Both are in Latin or latinised form, are printed in italics and are underlined separately when written by hand. A third word is added for a subspecies, which makes the name trinomial, as in the Indian elephant. Plant names are governed by the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi and plants and animal names by the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature. The name of the author who first described the species may follow the binomial. Above the genus, the organism is placed in a hierarchy of family, order, class, phylum or division and kingdom, each rank wider than the one below it.

Scientific names of animals

Scientific names of plants and crops

The names behind the national symbols

A favourite question joins this chapter to static general knowledge by asking for the scientific name of a national symbol. The national animal of India is the tiger, Panthera tigris; the national bird is the Indian peafowl, Pavo cristatus; the national flower is the lotus, Nelumbo nucifera; the national tree is the banyan, Ficus benghalensis; the national fruit is the mango, Mangifera indica; the national aquatic animal is the Ganges river dolphin, Platanista gangetica; and the national heritage animal is the Indian elephant, Elephas maximus indicus, whose three part name is a ready example of a trinomial. The peepal, Ficus religiosa, and the holy basil or tulsi, Ocimum sanctum, are two more names that appear in papers because of their place in Indian life.

How to remember the names

• Learn names in families: Panthera tigris, Panthera leo and Panthera pardus share a genus, as do Allium cepa and Allium sativum, and Ficus benghalensis and Ficus religiosa.
• Notice the species epithets that name India, such as Mangifera indica, Azadirachta indica and Elephas maximus indicus.
• Watch the epithets that describe the plant, such as officinarum for a medicinal or workshop plant and sativum or sativa for a cultivated one.
• Keep the capital letter on the genus and the small letter on the species; a question sometimes tests the rule of writing rather than the name itself.