Binomial Nomenclature

It is a method of giving scientific names to living organisms in which each species is given two names. First is the Genus name and the second is species name. This system was introduced by Swedish biologist Carolus Linnaeus (1707 – 1778 AD).

Rules of Binomial nomenclature

• Scientific names are written in italic or underlined.
• The generic name begins with a capital letter but a species name with a small letter.
• The full scientific name is written when it is used first. But if the repeated generic name is abbreviated.

Importance of Binomial Nomenclature

Common names cause confusion because of the following reasons.

• A single organism has many common names. e.g Ganda, Vassal, Bassal, and onion are common names of Allium cepa.
• Many organisms have a single common name. g crow and Raven have the same name “blackbird”.
• Common names have no scientific bases. e.g fish is an invertebrate but starfish, silverfish, jellyfish are not fishes biologically.

So, to avoid these confusions a universal system of nomenclature is adopted in which each organism has a single name all over the world.