» DIVISION OF FISH AND GAME 



SCIENTIFIC NAMES 



From the foregoing, it becomes evident that a common name cannot 

 be depended upon to provide a term which will separate a given animal 

 from any other or show the relationship of various kinds to each other. 

 Herein lies the reason for and the value of scientific names. Scientific 

 names are often regarded as unintelligible and consequently useless 

 appendages designed by the scientist for no good reason except perhaps 

 the confusion of the layman. They serve, however, definite and useful 

 purposes. The,y indicate relationship through a classification system and 

 they give each species a name which is reserved for it alone. It does not 

 matter what language one speaks or in what tongue a book is written, 

 Genyonemus lineatus always refers to what we call officially kingfish. 

 The fact that in other parts of the world a kingfish may be something 

 quite different or that our kingfish may be called tomcod or shiner or 

 some other name in California does not matter. As long as we say or 

 write Genyonemus lineatus there can be no question of what we mean, 

 for no two members of the animal kingdom have the same scientific name. 



The structure of the classification system is designed to show relation- 

 ship. All living things belong to either the plant or the animal kingdom. 

 This is the first very broad division. The animal kingdom in turn is 

 broken into a number of large groups called phyla (singular, phylum), 

 again on the basis of broad anatomical likenesses. Phylum Chordata, for 

 example, includes all animals with backbones and some very primitive 

 forms which do not have a backbone but which do possess certain struc- 

 tures in common with such diverse forms as mackerel, meadowlarks and 

 men. The next major sub-group is the class, one of which includes all 

 the bony fishes. Classes are divided into orders, orders into families, 

 families into genera (singular, genus), and genera into species (both 

 singular and plural), the basic unit in classification. In addition to these 

 major units, various intermediate groups are often employed, such as 

 sub-kingdoms, super-families and sub-species. 



Classification is not a rigid structure but a changing thing which is 

 altered as knowledged accumulates. Further, the various divisions are 

 man-made, and biologists do not always agree as to the proper position 

 of or the degree of relationship exhibited by the sundry groups of animals 

 and plants. One man may think of three species as forming a single 

 genus while another man may feel that the differences between them are 

 great enough to warrant establishing two or even three separate genera. 

 There is agreement on objectives and on many points of classification 

 but often disagreement on how the observed differences and similarities 

 should be interpreted. 



The scientific name as it usually appears consists of two parts, the 

 generic and the specific names in that order. Sometimes the name of the 

 subspecies, if there is one, follows. The words are usually italicized with 

 only the generic name beginning vni\\ a capital letter. Thus Engraulis 

 mordax designates the northern anchow ; species mordax in genus 

 Engraulis. There are, however, two known subspecies of this fish, and 

 if we want to show that we are speaking of the ocean form as distin- 

 guished from the one found in San Francisco Bay we must write Engrau- 

 lis mordax mordax. Often the name of a man, printed in Roman type, 

 follows the scientific name. This is the person who first described the 



