Q. I notice you sometimes include scientific names of animals in your columns. One time you identified a timber rattlesnake; another time, two turtles (an Alabama redbelly turtle and a stinkpot).

Last month, I wrote about the common names of birds, and the planned changes to some of those names. In the past, I’ve written about the folk names of birds. But there are also the scientific names of ...

A black-capped chickadee by any other name is a Poecile atricapillus. That’s the bird’s scientific name, the reference used worldwide to avoid the confusion a list of local names could offer. For ...

Aviva, Chris, and Martin explain what a scientific name is used for in the creature world. Martin, Chris and the gang are creature adventuring in the jungle. They come across Shadow and his mom. Aviva ...

When strolling through a garden center or flipping through a plant catalog, you’ll often notice two distinct names on each tag: a common name and a botanical name. While the common name feels friendly ...

Since the mid-1700s, researchers have classified life with scientific names. But some of them have problematic histories and connotations. The botanical community is trying to tackle this issue. Since ...