- Exam
- NEET
- Subject
- Botany
- Chapter
- The Living World
NEET · Botany · The Living World
What aspect of the scientific name indicates its Latin origin?
Options
- AUnderlined letters
- BBold letters
- CItalicized letters
- DCapitalized letters
Correct answer
C. Italicized letters
Step-by-step solution
This naming system given by Carolus Linnaeus is being practised by biologists all over the world. This naming system using a two word format was found convenient. Let us take the example of mango to understand the way of providing scientific names better. The scientific name of mango is written as Mangifera indica. Let us see how it is a binomial name. In this name Mangifera represents the genus while indica, is a particular species, or a specific epithet. Other universal rules of nomenclature are as follows: 1. Biological names are generally in Latin and written in italics. They are Latinised or derived from Latin irrespective of their origin. 2. The first word in a biological name represents the genus while the second component denotes the specific epithet. 3. Both the words in a biological name, when handwritten, are separately underlined, or printed in italics to indicate their Latin origin 4. The first word denoting the genus starts with a capital letter while the specific epithet starts with a small letter. It can be illustrated with the example of Mangifera indica.