Q. I notice you sometimes include scientific names of animals in your columns. One time you identified a timber rattlesnake; another time, two turtles (an Alabama redbelly turtle and a stinkpot).

Last month, I wrote about the common names of birds, and the planned changes to some of those names. In the past, I’ve written about the folk names of birds. But there are also the scientific names of ...

A living database reveals why the global count of mammal species keeps changing - and why accurate naming matters for ...

A black-capped chickadee by any other name is a Poecile atricapillus. That’s the bird’s scientific name, the reference used worldwide to avoid the confusion a list of local names could offer. For ...

When strolling through a garden center or flipping through a plant catalog, you’ll often notice two distinct names on each tag: a common name and a botanical name. While the common name feels friendly ...

Since the mid-1700s, researchers have classified life with scientific names. But some of them have problematic histories and connotations. The botanical community is trying to tackle this issue. Since ...

Passiflora incarnata, Nymphaea odorata, Chamaecrista fasciculata, Asclepius incarnata! Sounds like spells from the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, doesn’t it? While these words could come ...

For almost 300 years, researchers have classified life on Earth with scientific names — two-word monikers like Homo sapiens that become a kind of permanent label. But there are those who argue that ...

Support local journalism: Find offers for new subscribers here: Special Offers — FLORIDA TODAY. Typically, when we are asked questions about plants, the person asking may only know its common name, ...

Three large mammals in the world are commonly called “buffalo,” though each of them represents a different species. All of these are distantly related under the same family, Bovidae. The multitude of ...

Q. I notice you sometimes include scientific names of animals in your columns. One time you identified a timber rattlesnake; another time, two turtles (an Alabama redbelly turtle and a stinkpot).