How to write scientific names for animals, plants, and fungi

As an adventure writer, you probably don’t often use scientific naming in your stories, but occasionally you might want to use the scientific name of an animal, plant, or fungi that you come across during your travels. Here is how those names are formatted.

Common names

Common names don’t need any italics or capital letters unless one of the words is a proper name.

• snow leopard
• rimu
• Mount Cook buttercup
• shiitake

Scientific names, or the binomial

When you want to get specific, you can use the genus and species. Both are formatted in italics, and the genus is capitalised, even in the middle of a sentence.

• Panthera uncia (snow leopard)
• Dacrydium cupressinum (rimu)
• Ranunculus lyallii (Mount Cook buttercup)
• Lentinus edodes (shiitake)

If you’re going to use the scientific name more than once, then you can shorten the genus to just the first letter and a full stop:

• P. uncia
• D. cupressinum
• R. lyallii
• L. edodes

Some creatures have the same common name and genus, like the octopus or rhododendron. Unless you’re writing about a specific species, stick with lower case and regular (not italic) font.

• How many tentacles does an octopus have?
• The hills blazed with pink rhododendron flowers.

A note on plurals: check the dictionary if you’re not sure how to make a creature’s name plural. It’s easy to get tripped up with Latin and Greek ‘s’s and ‘i’s, but the dictionary will set you straight.

Wrapping up

Getting fiddly details like scientific names can be tricky, but getting them right means readers will trust you and stay engaged with your story. 

Need help wrangling your adventure into a compelling narrative? Contact me and we can start a conversation.

References

Naming species, Science Learning Hub Pokapū Akoranga Pūtaiao

Mount Cook buttercup, Department of Conservation

New Hart’s Rules, 2nd edition. Sections 14.2.1, 14.2.4, 14.2.5