Summary of Where Animals' Scientific Names Come From

00:00:00 - 00:05:00

This video discusses how scientists come up with the scientific names for animals. They use Greek and Latin words to systematize and categorize the organisms in the world. Some species have complicated names that are translated the same way, while others have one-word names that are translated differently depending on the context. Taxonomists also give shout outs to their contemporaries, and some of these shout outs are immortalized in the form of species names.

• 00:00:00 This video provides a brief overview of the scientific names for animals, and how taxonomists come up with these names. The taxonomists' primary job is to systematize and categorize the organisms in the world, and they use Greek and Latin words to do this. Some species have complicated names that are translated the same way, while others have one-word names that are translated differently depending on the context. Taxonomists also give shout outs to their contemporaries, and some of these shout outs are immortalized in the form of species names. Some of the celebrities mentioned in the video include Darwin, Thompson Grant, and Beyonce.
• 00:05:00 This video discusses the origins of animal names, focusing on the various principles that scientists use to determine which name is given to a new species. One example is the principle of priority, which states that the name given to a new species is the first name that is published. This has led to a number of misnomers, such as the red panda being called "shining cat" because they are actually about as close to cats as they are to actual pandas. Other examples include the extinct subspecies of the quagga being renamed to quagga quagga, and the double naming convention of renaming all taxa to be unique.