Types and Genera
Because of the rules of scientific naming, or "binomial nomenclature", each genus should have a designated type, although in practice there is a backlog of older names that may not yet have a type. In zoology this is the type species; the generic name is permanently associated with the type specimen of its type species. Should this specimen turn out to be assignable to another genus, the generic name linked to it becomes a junior synonym, and the remaining taxa in the former genus need to be reassessed.
See scientific classification and nomenclature codes for more details of this system. Also see type genus.
Read more about this topic: Genera, Generic Name
Famous quotes containing the words types and/or genera:
“He’s one of those know-it-all types that, if you flatter the wig off him, he chatter like a goony bird at mating time.”
—Michael Blankfort. Lewis Milestone. Johnson (Reginald Gardner)
“Genius detects through the fly, through the caterpillar, through the grub, through the egg, the constant individual; through countless individuals the fixed species; through many species the genus; through all genera the steadfast type; through all the kingdoms of organized life the eternal unity. Nature is a mutable cloud which is always and never the same.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)