Question

Which statement is true?
(a)Tautonyms are not allowed in plants.
(b)Tautonyms are not allowed in animals.
(c)Tautonyms normally allowed in animals and sometimes allowed in plants.
(d)Tautonyms allowed only in bacteria.

Answer 1

Hint A tautonym is a scientific name used in which both the species name (specific epithet), as well as the genus (generic name), have the same spelling. This can be seen in the scientific name of the black rat known as Rattus rattus.

Complete Answer:
A scientific name is made up of two words which represent the genus and specific epithet (for plants and fungi) or specific name (for animals). In tautonyms, both words are the same. Tautonyms are allowed in zoological nomenclature as the word tautonym was also used in such names. But now tautonymous names also include trinomial names such as Gorilla gorilla gorilla and Bison bison bison. Normally tautonyms are allowed for animals if the organism is the type species of its genus. A type species is a species that is considered to be permanently associated with its genus. Tautonyms are not allowed in plants i.e. botanical nomenclature.

Additional information:
The two name system was given by the Swedish naturalist Carolus Linnaeus in order to remove the confusion by establishing a universal naming system.
Biological names are generally derived from Latin words irrespective of the organism’s origin as it is an old and dead language. This ensures that new words are not being added to the Latin vocabulary and thus the names of the organisms can remain constant.
The scientific name is written in italics while printing or separately underlined if handwritten. This is done to indicate their Latin origin.
The scientific name consists of the genus which always starts with a capital letter and the specific name which always starts with a small letter.
Examples of names written using the two-name system are Mangifera indica, Homo sapiens.

So, the correct option is ‘Tautonyms are not allowed in plants.’

Note:
-Modern humans are named Homo sapiens sapiens.
-In botanical nomenclature, it is allowed if the spelling of both the words is different even though they mean the same as seen in Arctostaphylos uva-ursi which means bearberry twice.
-It is also allowed if the other word is a slight modification of the first word as seen in Lycopersicon lycopersicum.