la – lat – Latina – Latin | The scientific language. The use of Latin is nowadays mainly limited to biology, medicin and (Christian) liturgy. Scientific bird names, as all biological species names, use the binomial nomenclature: a first genus part e.g. Ciconia (stork) and a species part e.g. nigra (black). The scientific bird names are not always properly Latin. Many name parts are latinised from other languages especially Greek, e.g. leucurus (latin: albicaudatus, white-tailed), or are eponyms (containing a person’s name) or other. Scientific names may – and in fact frequently do – change in view of taxonomic developments. On the other hand, Latin spelling is fixed as from the first acceptance of a species names even if is would not be in accordance with traditional Latin. As for the choice between synonyms, see “Taxonomy”. Species List Synonyms S contains most or all scientific names, including synonyms, for the Holaractic species, together with English names and synonyms.
