Species name
species name (noun, pl. species names;nomenclature term) – in nomenclature referring to a single, unique and valid name for a particular species, referring to the binominal, i. e., a combination of the genus name and the specific epithet; to avoid taxonomic confusion the name of the author, who described the species, is part of the species name. For example: "Buellia stellulata (Taylor) Mudd" is a species name; "Buellia" is the genus, "stellulata" the specific epithet, "Taylor" was the author who first described this particular species as Lecidea stellulata Taylor, and Mudd recognized that the species belongs to Buellia, not Lecidea, and thus created the new combination that is now accepted as the valid name. If future research demonstrates that the species does not belong to Buellia but another genus, another taxonomic combination will have to be made. It is a general convention in taxonomy to italicize all names below the genus rank.
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