Taxonomy – Giving Names to Species

Why Scientific Names Matter

Anyone interested in marine life quickly encounters scientific names such as Carcharias taurus, Chelonia mydas, or Gymnothorax moringa. While common names are often easier to remember, scientific names provide a universal language that allows divers, photographers, scientists, and naturalists around the world to refer to the same species without ambiguity.

The exact number of species living on Earth is still unknown and continues to increase as new species are discovered every year. To organize this enormous diversity, biologists use a system of naming and classification that originated with the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the eighteenth century. His system of binomial nomenclature assigns every species a unique scientific name consisting of a genus and a species name.

In addition to naming organisms, biology uses a hierarchical classification system known as taxonomy. The major taxonomic ranks are:

Domain → Kingdom → Phylum → Class → Order → Family → Genus → Species

Once the scientific name of an organism is known, its position within this classification system can easily be determined.

Common Names and Their Limitations

Common names are often useful in everyday conversation but can be misleading. They vary between countries, regions, and languages, and the same species may have several different common names.

A good example is the Sand Tiger Shark (Carcharias taurus), which is known as the Grey Nurse Shark in Australia and the Ragged-Tooth Shark in South Africa. Despite its name, it is neither closely related to tiger sharks nor to nurse sharks.

For this reason, scientific names are the most reliable way to identify species and communicate unambiguously about marine life.

Accepted Names and Synonyms

Scientific names are intended to be unique, but the history of taxonomy is often complicated. Many species have been described independently by different scientists and therefore received multiple scientific names.

Modern taxonomic databases help resolve these inconsistencies by identifying a single accepted name and treating the others as synonyms.

For example, the accepted scientific name of the Sand Tiger Shark is Carcharias taurus. Older names such as Odontaspis cinerea are now regarded as synonyms. Databases such as WoRMS (World Register of Marine Species) and FishBase provide continuously updated information on accepted names, synonyms, taxonomy, and species distributions.

Building the ReefColors Database

Every photograph on ReefColors contains information that goes far beyond the image itself. Creating a searchable species database requires several steps.

Step 1 – Species Identification

The most challenging and error-prone step is identifying the organism in the photograph. Some species are easy to recognize, while others can be extremely difficult.

Few divers would confuse a Sand Tiger Shark with another species, but many gobies, blennies, nudibranchs, or sponges require careful examination of small details. In some cases, reliable identification may only be possible through microscopic examination or genetic analysis.

Species identifications are based on field guides, scientific literature, online databases, and occasionally the help of taxonomic experts.

Step 2 – Metadata Management

Once a species has been identified, its common name and scientific name are stored in the image metadata using Adobe Lightroom. Additional information such as location, dive site, date, and photographic details is also recorded.

Step 3 – Taxonomic Verification

The species list is exported and compared with the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS). This allows scientific names to be checked automatically against the current accepted taxonomy and provides the complete taxonomic classification for each species.

Step 4 – Database Updates

Scientific names and classifications are updated where necessary to ensure consistency throughout the database.

Step 5 – Import into ReefColors

The verified metadata are imported into the ReefColors database, where they become searchable by common name, scientific name, taxonomic group, location, and other criteria.

Taxonomy is constantly evolving as new species are discovered and relationships between known species are revised. As a result, the ReefColors database is continually updated to reflect current scientific knowledge as accurately as possible.