Firstly, I notice that allot of people (including myself in the past) use Capitols for both names, this isnt corrent, the first part, the Genus should be Capitolised, but the species name shouldnt be, for eg...
Themnothorax nylanderi
Myrmica rubra
So how are names decieded? There are several diffrent ways...
Famous people:
Camponotus ceaser, brutus
Location:
Tetramorium guineense (ese meaning out of)
Anochetus africanus (meaning belong to)
The collector or sponser of the discovery:
Cataulacus boltoni (i is added at the end usually, except when ends in a...)
Bondroitia lujae (e is added after a)
Species Characteristics:
Monomorium bicolor (this is fairly obvious, bi is 2, so 2 color)
Tetramorium cryptica ('species that hide', cryptic)
An interesting one...
Pseudolasius bufonus, was first descovered in the stomach of toads of the Genus Bufo.
So if you want to understand taxonomic species names, u'r gonna have to learn latin I'm afraid, but hopefully this will put a little light on the subject
ref and more detailed information can be found here: Hyperlinks sind nur für registrierte Nutzer sichtbar
