Scientific Names
Quiz Time
Let’s see how much you
know about animals. If I
asked you what kind of
animal is a poodle, you
would say it’s a dog. So,
let’s see how much you
know about some other
animals.
Question 1
What kind of animal is a
slow worm?
The answer
It’s a lizard.
Question 2
What kind of animal is a
Ceylon frogmouth?
The answer
It’s a bird.
Question 3
What kind of animal is a
killer whale?
The answer
It’s a dolphin.
Question 4
What kind of animal is a
koala bear?
The answer
It’s a marsupial.
Question 5
What kind of animal is a
galliwasp?
The answer
It’s a lizard.
Question 6
What kind of animal is a
horned toad?
The answer
It’s a lizard.
Question 7
What kind of animal is a
mudpuppy?
The answer
It’s an amphibian.
Question 8
What kind of animal is a
striped burrfish toad?
The answer
It’s a fish.
Question 9
What kind of animal is a
roach?
The answer
It’s a fish.
Question 10
What kind of animal is a
red bishop?
The answer
It’s a bird.
Furthermore
• a flying fish and a flying
squirrel can’t fly
• Panda bears are not
bears, but are related to
raccoons…
• Groundhogs are not hogs
and guinea pigs are not pigs
• Prairie dogs are not dogs
• A sandfish and a starfish
are not fish
• A seahorse is not a horse…
And a Tasmanian devil is
not the devil.
It can be very confusing
because many animals and
other organisms have
misleading names.
Scientific Names
To eliminate any
confusion, scientists use
scientific names for
organisms. These names
are the same no matter
where a scientist lives or
the language they speak.
To get a scientific
name, you take the name
of the genus that the
organism belongs to and
combine with the
species name.
Example:
A wolf belongs to the
genus called Canis and
its species is lupus. The
scientific name for a
wolf is Canis lupus.
There a few ways you
can recognize a
scientific name when
you see one.
First, it will be written in
italics, or underlined if
written by hand.
Second, it has two parts
(Genus & species).
Third, the genus will
start with an uppercase
letter and the species
will start with a
lowercase.
Finally, the name may
sound strange because
it is in Latin. Scientists,
along with doctors and
lawyers, use Latin
because it is a dead
language.
That means no one uses
it as their everyday
language so the
meanings of the words
don’t change.
Some examples
• Canis lupus – wolf
• Canis familiaris – dog
Notice that wolves and
dogs belong to the same
genus. This means they
are closely related.
More examples
• Felis domesticus – cat
• Felis concolor –
mountain lion
They share the same
genus, too.
Last example
The scientific name for
humans is Homo sapiens.