Binomial Definition

Binomial names are the universal "first and last names" of every micro-organism, inherited from Linnaean taxonomy. The first word (the genus) is always capitalised and groups together species that share a close evolutionary lineage—Escherichia, for example, gathers gut-dwelling rods such as E. coli and E. albertii. The second word (the species epithet) is lowercase and distinguishes one member of the genus from another. Written in italics and fixed in Latin-style form, the pair becomes a legally recognised label once it is published in the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology and entered into registries such as NCBI or LPSN. Because the format is rigid and globally standardised, even a newly coined species should "look right" at a glance; that visual regularity is exactly what makes it possible for an LLM—and sometimes a human reader—to mistake a well-crafted fiction for an authentic taxon.