two-part name
Linnaeus developed binomial nomenclature , a way to give a scientific name to every organism. In this system, each organism receives a two-part name in which the first word is the genus a group of species , and the second word refers to one species in that genus. For example, a coyote's species name is Canis latrans . Latrans is the species and Canis is the genus, a larger group that includes dogs, wolves, and other dog-like animals. Here is another example: the red maple, Acer rubra , and the sugar maple, Acer saccharum , are both in the same genus and they look similar Figure below . Notice that the genus is capitalized and the species is not, and that the whole scientific name is in italics. Tigers Panthera tigris and lions Panthera leo have the same genus name, but are obviously different species. The names may seem strange, but the names are written in a language called Latin.