Genus is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nomenclature, the genus name forms the first part of the binomial species name for each species within the genus.
The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) is a widely accepted convention in zoology that rules the formal scientific naming of organisms treated as animals. It is also informally known as the ICZN Code, for its publisher, the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. The rules principally regulate:
In biology, a type is a particular specimen of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally attached. In other words, a type is an example that serves to anchor or centralize the defining features of that particular taxon. In older usage, a type was a taxon rather than a specimen.
The International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) is an organization dedicated to "achieving stability and sense in the scientific naming of animals". Founded in 1895, it currently comprises 24 commissioners from 18 countries.
A conserved name or nomen conservandum is a scientific name that has specific nomenclatural protection. That is, the name is retained, even though it violates one or more rules which would otherwise prevent it from being legitimate. Nomen conservandum is a Latin term, meaning "a name to be conserved". The terms are often used interchangeably, such as by the International Code of Nomenclature for Algae, Fungi, and Plants (ICN), while the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature favours the term "conserved name".
Zootaxa is a peer-reviewed scientific mega journal for animal taxonomists. It is published by Magnolia Press. The journal was established by Zhi-Qiang Zhang in 2001 and new issues are published multiple times a week. From 2001 to 2020, more than 60,000 new species have been described in the journal accounting for around 25 % of all new taxa indexed in The Zoological Record in the last few years. Print and online versions are available.
MycoBank is an online database, documenting new mycological names and combinations, eventually combined with descriptions and illustrations. It is run by the Westerdijk Fungal Biodiversity Institute in Utrecht.
The Zoological Record (ZR) is an electronic index of zoological literature that also serves as the unofficial register of scientific names in zoology.
In biological classification, taxonomic rank is the relative level of a group of organisms in a taxonomic hierarchy. Examples of taxonomic ranks are species, genus, family, order, class, phylum, kingdom, domain, etc.
ZooBank is an open access website intended to be the official International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) registry of zoological nomenclature. Any nomenclatural acts need to be registered with ZooBank to be "officially" recognized by the ICZN Code of Nomenclature.
A species description is a formal description of a newly discovered species, usually in the form of a scientific paper. Its purpose is to give a clear description of a new species of organism and explain how it differs from species which have been described previously or are related. The species description often contains photographs or other illustrations of the type material and states in which museums it has been deposited. The publication in which the species is described gives the new species a formal scientific name. Some 1.9 million species have been identified and described, out of some 8.7 million that may actually exist. Millions more have become extinct throughout the existence of life on Earth.
The Global Lepidoptera Names Index (LepIndex) is a searchable database maintained by the Department of Entomology at the Natural History Museum, London.
This is a list of terms and symbols used in scientific names for organisms, and in describing the names. For proper parts of the names themselves, see List of Latin and Greek words commonly used in systematic names. Note that many of the abbreviations are used with or without a stop.
Miscellanea Malacologica is a peer-reviewed scientific journal covering malacology, specifically papers on the taxonomy, nomenclature, and zoogeography of mollusks. The journal is published by Marien Faber and was established in 2004.
The Israel Journal of Entomology is an open access peer-reviewed scientific journal that publishes articles in all areas of entomology, including besides insects non-marine Crustacea and Chelicerata, and has a worldwide scope. The Israel Journal of Entomology is published primarily electronically and accepts original research articles, as well as review papers and smaller contributions. The printed version of the Israel Journal of Entomology is produced annually and comprises articles appeared during the preceding year.
Zoosystema is a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the National Museum of Natural History, France, covering research in animal biodiversity. Specific subjects within the journal's scope include comparative, functional and evolutionary morphology, phylogeny, biogeography, taxonomy and nomenclature, among others. Zoosystema publishes articles in English and French.
Palaeontologia Electronica is a triannual peer-reviewed open-access scientific journal published by Coquina Press covering paleontology. It was established in 1998 and is the oldest fully open-access electronic journal of paleontology. The journal is sponsored by the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, the Paleontological Society, the Palaeontological Association, and the Western Interior Paleontological Society. The editors-in-chief are Julien Louys and Andrew Bush. In 2000, the first taxonomic names published electronically under new rules in the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature were published in the journal by Scott et al. (2000) for three new species of fossil foraminifera: Eggerella matsunoi, Haplophragmoides hatai, and Haplophragmoides nishikizawensis.
Taxon is a bimonthly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering plant taxonomy. It is published by Wiley on behalf of the International Association for Plant Taxonomy, of which it is the official journal. It was established in 1952 and is the only place where nomenclature proposals and motions to amend the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants can be published. The editor-in-chief is Dirk C. Albach.
The Wells and Wellington affair was a dispute about the publication of three papers in the Australian Journal of Herpetology in 1983 and 1985. The periodical was established in 1981 as a peer-reviewed scientific journal focusing on the study of amphibians and reptiles (herpetology). Its first two issues were published under the editorship of Richard W. Wells, a first-year biology student at Australia's University of New England. Wells then ceased communicating with the journal's editorial board for two years before suddenly publishing three papers without peer review in the journal in 1983 and 1985. Coauthored by himself and high school teacher Cliff Ross Wellington, the papers reorganized the taxonomy of all of Australia's and New Zealand's amphibians and reptiles and proposed over 700 changes to the binomial nomenclature of the region's herpetofauna.
Richard Walter Wells is an Australian herpetologist. He is known for editing the Australian Journal of Herpetology in the 1980s, in which he and C. Ross Wellington wrote and published three papers without academic peer review that proposed significant changes to the taxonomy and nomenclature of Australian reptiles and amphibians. In the 2000s, Wells self-published herpetological research in the Australian Biodiversity Record. The scientific names he proposed therein are the subject of a boycott begun in 2013 by some members of the herpetological community.
