Glossary · also authority
Authorship
The person who first formally described a species, and the year, shown after its scientific name.
“Linnaeus, 1758” after a name means Carl Linnaeus described the species in 1758. Brackets around the author and year show that the species has since been moved to a different genus from the one it was first described in.
Related terms
- Scientific name
- The formal two-part name of a species, written in italics: the genus, then the species.
- Synonym
- An older or alternative scientific name for the same species, no longer the accepted one.