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 ...

Passiflora incarnata, Nymphaea odorata, Chamaecrista fasciculata, Asclepius incarnata! Sounds like spells from the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, doesn’t it? While these words could come ...

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 ...

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).

Butterfly populations in the US declined 22% between 2000 and 2020. Butterflies and moths belong to the biological order Lepidoptera. Butterflies undergo complete metamorphosis: egg, larva, pupa, ...