To answer this question, I thought that the most logical person to ask would be a taxonomist. So I forwarded Dr. Inouye's question to Dr. Charles D. Dondale, Honorary (= Emeritus) Curator of the Arachnid Section for the Canadian National Collection of Insects and Arachnids. Here is his answer:
Answer: Taxonomists operate under a set of Rules of Zoological Nomenclature. In this little book is found the rule that generic and species names are to be written in Latin, or in words that are latinized. Many following rules specify the endings for nouns, adjectives, etc. Higher categories are not latinized, but have certain endings such as -idae for family names. Most taxonomists I know keep a copy of the rules at hand. > > Why do we italicize only genus and species names when presenting > taxonomic information? > > One web site I looked at claims that "By the way, the italics are > used only because it is proper, in writing, to italicize words that > are in any language other than English." Aren't any other parts of > the taxonomic hierarchy in Latin? > > -- L. Brian Patrick Ph.D. candidate Department of Biological Sciences Kent State University Kent, OH 44242 USA e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
