Scientific names: genus and species
Read the scientific names of eleven animals and plants found in Nepal, from the tiger and the jackal to the peepal and lali gurans, look up their families, and sort them by genus.
Core concept
Every species has a two-part (binomial) scientific name: the genus, written with a capital letter, then the species; closely related species share a genus, and genera are grouped into families, orders, classes, phyla and kingdoms
Topic: Classification
Local names change from place to place: a leopard is chituwa in one district and something else in another, and in English it is a leopard. So scientists give every species one scientific name, used all over the world. The Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus started this system of binomial nomenclature: each name has two parts, the genus and the species, written in italics (or underlined), with a capital letter only for the genus. The tiger is Panthera tigris. Species that are closely related share a genus, so the leopard is Panthera pardus. Genera are grouped into a family, families into an order, then a class, a phylum and a kingdom: the hierarchy of classification. In this lab you read each living thing's scientific name and family, then sort them into their genera.
What you will learn
- Explain why scientific names are needed.
- Write a binomial name correctly and identify its genus and species.
- List the ranks of classification from kingdom to species.
- Group species into genera using their scientific names.
Before you start
- Know the five kingdoms of living things.
Materials
- Pictures of the animals and plants, a biology textbook or field guide
Equipment
- A hand lens to look at leaves and flowers
Procedure
- Pick a living thing's card and read its scientific name and family.
- Do this for at least six living things.
- Sort every living thing into its genus.