Jump to content

Talk:Aplysia gill and siphon withdrawal reflex

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Common name vs. scientific name

[edit]

I really hate seeing model organisms referred to by their genus (exclusively). All of the work described in this article was performed on one species of Aplysia, correct? Not multiple species across the genus. I realize Aplysia californica is a mouthful and people working with this model organism don't want to say 9 sylllables every time they refer to it. Fine. Aplysia can also be a common name for the species used as a model organism. There are plenty of scientific names that serve dual duty as common names; rhododendron, rhinoceros, etc. If they are common names, they are not capitalized, and are certainly not italicized. If you use italics, you better be talking about the genus as a whole.192.104.39.2 (talk) 23:18, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]