Dear Susan,

There are over 15,000 English names in the Species Dictionary, which covers more or less every species that has a common name. There are, of course, numerous groups which only have scientific names.

We did run a website at the Natural History Museum called "Nature Navigator" which, unfortunately, was taken down towards the end of last year. This was somewhat like the Species Dictionary but was a finding aid aimed at the general public and recognised that this audience would know very few (if any) scientific names. Importantly, Nature Navigator mapped informal names for higher groupings (crabs, mosses, worms) to the scientific equivalents. The good news is that we are currently rebuilding the Species Dictionary website and, when finished, it will incorporate a lot of the features of Nature Navigator.

Regards,

Charles Hussey

NBN Species Dictionary Project Manager (Retired!)

Because the scientific names are the common names :)

Throughout the dictionary there are many examples where the common name given is also the scientific name.

I just printed a species list for a site which began with the entry

Scientific name            Common name
Festuca rubra agg.      Festuca rubra agg.

Since the purpose of having the common name there at all is to enable those not familiar with the scientific names to have some degree of understanding, it would actually be more useful if the common name was given as "a grass".

This situation is far worse in the case of less well known and taxonomically more "fluid" groups such as fungi and lichens where genera are frequently split and lumped and given ever more indigestible scientific names, many of which do not occur in any but the most recent and comprehensive field guides. All most people really need to know is that it is a fungus.