Before the mid-1700s, biologists named a particular type of organism using descriptive names based on physical characteristics, locations, or other distinguishing features. For example, a plant with large leaves might be called "bigleaf."
The genus and species name of an organism are properly written using binomial nomenclature, a system developed by Carl Linnaeus. In this system, each organism is given a two-part scientific name. The first part is the genus name, which is always capitalized and italicized (or underlined if written by hand). The second part is the species name, which is lowercase and also italicized. For example, humans are known as Homo sapiens, where "Homo" is the genus and "sapiens" is the species.
It's important to note that when written together, the genus and species names form the scientific name of the organism. This naming system helps biologists communicate globally about specific organisms without confusion, as each scientific name is unique to a particular species.
