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Suggestions on how to find the source roots of scientific names?

Posted by James Briggs on March 12, 2003

In Reply to: Suggestions on how to find the source roots of scientific names? posted by janes_kid on March 12, 2003

: Example Corvus brachyrhynchos is a crow or ravin. "brachy.." apparently means feather. How would you go about searching for the meaning of "..rhychos" or other scientific names?

I'm pretty certain 'brachy' means 'short', not to be confused with 'brachi' which means 'to do with the upper limb'. One is Greek and the other La*in - all very confusing.
I suggest a large technical dictionary as a good start for a search. Others may have better ideas and/or even correct my La*in and Gr**k - I only got 8% for the former at the end of my 4th year at Grammar school - that's a UK one, not a US one!

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