How do you pluralize a Latin name?

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jclyde13

jclyde13

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Does anyone know? I've been thinking about this for a while, and coincidentally, it was brought up in another thread today, so I've been trying to find the answer (with no luck, obviously). Are Latin names appropriate to use as either singular or plural without modification (e.g. "They had several large Arapaima gigas," or "They had a large Arapaima gigas."), or do you have to change the species name in some way (e.g. "Synodontis euptera are fun to keep," vs. "I had a Synodontis eupterus once; it was fun to keep)?


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I've always used them as plural& singular.


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While it's not required to pluralize taxonomic greek or latin names, if you wish to do so, there are several levels of grammatical requirements to follow. The following is only one example of one of the levels in grammatical alterations to follow. Genus names are not pluralized. Species names may be pluralized. The most common species suffix of -us may be pluralized with -ii after removing the -us suffix.
 
Okay, one more question, then: why is it that several species have multiple commonly used suffixes? Is there one correct suffix for each species, or are there just multiple suffixes that are generally accepted in some cases? (some examples are eupterus/euptera, notatus/notata, and sinspilum/synspila/synspilus).


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The original (or parent) identifiers used a century ago (and more) incorporated the suffix -a. Later, an accepted synonym in the taxonomic nomenclature incorporated the use of -us in place of -a. Today, both types of suffix utilizations are acceptable.

It all depends on which information bank you check.

Example:

taxID (taxonomic identifier)
Lepidosiren paradoxa, PA 7881 (Parent ID)
CC Lepidosiren paradoxus, Synonym
 
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