When to Capitalize Creature and Plant Names

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Few technical writing errors drive editors to distraction like superfluous capitalization does. This eruption of capitalitis (a pathogen otherwise known as Uppercasis ludicrosii) is most often seen in references to plants and animals.

Words that comprise the names of plant species are generally lowercase: "Lumber from the alive oak is rarely used for furniture." Exceptions occur when one or more than of the words is named afterward a person or a geographical location, equally in the name of the California poppy. (The flowering plant bougainvillea is named after French explorer Louis Antoine de Bougainville, but plant names so inspired are still lowercase.)

An exception is as well made for references to types of fruits and vegetables, such as Carmine Delicious apples or Early Daughter tomatoes. Then at that place are names of cultivars, or cultivated varieties, of plants, such every bit that of a kind of broccoli, Brassica oleracea 'Calabrese'.

The convention in botany is to enclose the proper name of the cultivar in unmarried quotation marks. Annotation as well the exception to the rule about placing endmost punctuation inside quotation marks; this format, besides employed in linguistics and philosophy, reflects the intention to clarify the precise terminology in question.

Observe the italicized proper noun mentioned merely above, and the jocular ane in the first paragraph: Those are examples, respectively authentic and artificial, of binomial nomenclature, the system of Latin-inspired scientific names for life-forms. The offset element, the genus name, is capitalized; the second chemical element, the species name, is not (even if it derives from a place name, as in Artemisia californica, the proper name of a constitute constitute in California). Such terms, as shown hither, are generally italicized.

Binomial nomenclature is, of grade, also used for animals, including the singularly curious one designated as Homo sapiens. However, equally in the instance of plant names, animal names are not capitalized ("I spotted a red-tailed hawk," not "I spotted a Red-Tailed Hawk"), except when an chemical element of the proper name is a proper substantive, equally in "Steller'south jay" and "Siberian tiger."

Animal breeds, unlike types of produce and found cultivars, are given no special handling: Your cocker spaniel is special, of course, but its brood proper name merits no capitalization. Withal, many names of breeds of dogs and cats are exceptions, such equally those of the High german shepherd, the Siamese cat, and the Thoroughbred horse. The preponderance of such examples may be the cause of confusion about capitalization of animal names.

The rules are complicated, simply it'due south a simple enough thing to get a ruling: Check the dictionary.

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