Abstract
Biology deals with billions of living organisms, which display a great diversity but also share many characters, being the result of an evolution. Designating these organisms in a universal and unambiguous way is a basic need for communication, not only among taxonomists or even biologists, but with society as a whole. It is indispensable to have a unique system for distinguishing and naming the organisms that may be used for alimentary, agronomical, veterinary or medical purposes or for any other human needs, that may be responsible for diseases, pollutions, biotic invasions, that we may wish to protect, study or admire, etc. For all these purposes, we need a scientific discipline, taxonomy, dealing not only with the classification of living organisms into millions of classificatory units, the taxa, but also with the designation and indexation of these taxa (nomenclature). Biological nomenclature has to care for the scientific naming of millions of taxa (species and higher taxa like genera or families), the inventory of which is still very far from being finished.