Taxonomy

or
Scientific Nomenclature

The use of two Latin sounding words after each common bird name in the article above refers to the bird's genus and species. The genus is always capitalized and the species name is not. This technique of naming all living things; either plant, animal, bacteria, or mold is a way for scientists and other interested people to know that they are talking about the same organism.

The scientific name is sometimes similar to the common name. For example Branta canadensis is Canada Geese. A Brant is another word for goose and canadensis refers to where the bird is from--Canada. A Snowy Egret is Egretta thula. It is easy to see where Egret comes from, and thula probably refer to thule or north. Two different types of birds can have the same genus name or the same species name but not both. Otherwise they are the same type.

Other examples included are Homo sapiens (that's us). It means rational or thinking man. (Whoever came up with that name doesn't know the same men I do.) Felis domesticus or Felis catus refers to the common housecat, while Felis concolor refer to a Mountain lion. But a Lynx is called Lynx or L. canadensis. Why? Because is it is not the same genus as the other two cats. It's species name is canadensis just like the Canada Goose. But a Lynx is not that closely related to a Canada Goose.

Though they are both from the Animal kingdom both have backbone making them Vertebrates (unlike Rush Limbaugh), but one is a mammal and the other is a bird.

Scientific nomenclature works the same for all living things. No matter what Kingdom they are from and there are a lot more Kingdoms than just the plant and animal kingdom some of us learned in school along time ago.

If you play Trivial Pursuits or Jeopardy fans or studying for a Biology Exam sometime in the future I am going to leave you with a mnemonic device to help you remember the proper order in which scientific classification occurs:

King Phillip Crossed Over From Greece on Saturday=
Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species.

Remember, you will be tested on this.