- Genus name: Rattus
- Species name: rattus
- Subspecies name: rattus
You’d actually say it as R. rattus rattus or Rattus r. rattus.
Also, the scientific name of the Western lowland gorilla is gorilla gorilla gorilla. You’d say it as G. g. gorilla.
The OG
The GGG
Gorilla Gorilla Allin?
Hey that’s Cancer Mouse recoloured!
Vulpes vulpes vulpes is another one, I’m gonna guess that all these triple names are from the eighteenth century, when the dude said this subspecies is the regular one so I’ll keep repeating the name to make it clear. Like vulgaris in plants.
Rattus R. Rattus has some real Chuck E. Cheese energy.
Rattus R. Rattus is his well-to-do British uncle.
Rat3
Rat cubed.
The rattest rat
Crucially, I forgot to note the taxonomist who described it:
Similarly, the Eurasian Brown Bear is Ursus Arctos Arctos (U. a. arctos) which just means Bear Bear Bear in Latin and Ancient Greek, respectively 😄
This seems like a fact that John Oliver would bring up.
Saying its name trice is a summoning chant, which may have worked a bit too well. You should check your house just in case.
Once. Twice. Three times a rattus.
The rat so nice they named it thrice!
I had Fire Salamanders for a long time and their scientific name was Salamandra salamandra salamandra (or S. s. salamandra)
Rat in a dollhouse always cheers me up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bYbLv20Q0I
Offhand I think that be the case for every/most type species.
Not nearly, actually! Exact tautonyms are pretty uncommon, all things considered. Trinomial tautonyms even less so, like Bison bison bison. I don’t think I can give you actual data, but I can say knowing a fair bit of marine taxonomy that it’s the exception there.
Edit: It’s also prohibited in botany and, I learned today, used to be prohibited for bacteria.
Edit 2: Wikipedia maintains an incomplete list, incidentally.
Edit 3: Forgot to mention I was specifically talking about binomial/trinomial tautonyms. Near-tautonyms are very common as you go up toward the middle of the tree of life, e.g. a family, superfamily, and order sharing basically the same name, just with a different prescribed suffix.
Mus musculus was the one I was thinking of. The -culus is just the diminutive suffix.
Does Homo Sapiens Sapiens count here?
Yeah, it’s a tautonym too. H. sapiens sapiens is the type subspecies for species H. sapiens.
Rattus Norvegus (common brown rat) was named by that Norwegian Linnaeus guy who came up with the Latin naming scheme for species. They are not particularly Norwegian actually.
A. The common brown rat is named Rattus norvegicus
B. Carl Linneaus was Swedish (born in Råshult, near Älmhult, Krononberg County, Småland; died in Hammarby).
C. Your rattus norvegicus was named so by John Berkenhout (English, born in Leeds), who believed the rats migrated to England from Norwegian ships in 1728. (Source: Berkenhout, John (1769). Outlines of the Natural History of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 1. London: Printed for P. Elmsly (Successor to Mr. Vaillant). p. 5.)
How dare you say he’s Norwegian! Those mountain trolls could never spawn someone of such greatness! Next you’ll tell me Anders Celsius was Danish, pwah.
Sweden had some good ones. Schele is my favourite. If you are a chemist tasting stuff to identify properties is a bad idea.
As a Norwegian myself I like Kristian Birkeland who in order to fund his aurora borealis research invented the Birkeland-Eyde process of fixing nitrogen from the air. Thereby enabeling the mass production of fertilizer
