NC Vertebrates
some NC vertebrates . . .
AKA . . . Human, Gray Squirrel, Red Squirrel, Carolina Wren, Northern Mockingbird, Copperhead, Cottonmouth, Marbled Salamander, and Striped Bass
each species is designated by a unique scientific name
(always underlined or italicized)
IMPORTANT DETAILS . . .
species and genus names must follow International Code of Zoological Nomenclature ... administered by an international committee ... so that (ideally) all scientists know which species they are discussing primary rule for scientific nomenclature is priority ... the binomial name (genus and species) applied to the first recognizable description of a species has priority of all later names for that species ... all species names must have a type specimen deposited in a museum binomial names for species were first introduced by Carl Linnaeus in 1758 ... he lived in Sweden but his Systema Naturae was published in Amsterdam ... Linnaeus went through nearly all books then published and applied genus and species names to the animals and plants they described and provided a brief diagnostic description of each species ... he also introduced our current hierarchy for classifying species into genera, families, orders, classes ... he thus introduced the important principle that nomenclature should indicate phylogenetic relationships in recent decades the English names of species (at least in North America) have also become standardized by professional committees ... these standardized English names (always capitalized like proper names) also let us know what we are talking about (see the English names of species above) ... nevertheless scientific publications must provide correct scientific names
(A) Why is the Gray Squirrel (which occurs throughout eastern North America) named Sciurus carolinensis which in Latin means "Carolina squirrel"? (B) Why is the name of the Striped Bass Morone saxatilis instead of Roccus saxatilis (used up to the 1950's) or Roccus striatus (proposed in 1814) or Perca saxatilis (proposed in 1792)? (C) Which of the species above occurs only in the mountains of NC? (D) Which occurs only on the coastal plain of NC? (E) Why are the species of fish in the rivers of the piedmont almost all different species than those in the rivers of the mountains? (F) How many endemic (occurring nowhere else) species of vertebrates live in NC? (G) Where are they? Answers: (A) Linnaeus based this name on the description by Mark Catesby in the first illustrated book on the natural history of North America The Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahamas (2 volumes, 1731, 1743; second edition 1754 ... all before Linnaeus introduced binomial names). Linnaeus only knew that this squirrel occurred in "Carolina". (B) Priority, priority, priority! (C) Red Squirrel. (D) Cottonmouth ("water moccasin" is a name applied by people to any snake in water, including 5 species of non-venomous watersnakes (genus Nerodia), one of which looks very much like (possibly even mimics) the Cottonmouth and one of which occurs in rivers and lakes throughout NC. (E) Rivers west of the Blue Ridge Escarpment flow westward into the Mississippi River and thus have been isolated from the eastern rivers that flow into the Atlantic for several hundred million years! (F) Just a few fish and one species of mudpuppy (an aquatic salamander). In general, NC has few natural boundaries that limit the movements of vertebrates. (G) All endemic species are in coastal rivers (which are isolated from each other but only for tens of millions of years).
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with an "s" at the end (for example, "one species" or "two species")